August.

August is becoming my favorite summer month.When I just succumb to the heat and the laziness it intended and say 'No' to everything people ask me to do. The thick salt air is like an intoxicating elixir, swallowing me up. I'm nature's toy-- take me as I am and where the wind blows.But the wind doesn't blow. It rests too. So, even though I am overheating, I get to stay home in my sweaty nest.--I look at my children. Two girls. Two souls. Two futures. And I feel the weight of it all. My head feels heavy. Sometimes I have to sleep or swim. We are so fragile and so thick. My children could swallow me whole. I have doubted just about everything I've done since they've arrived except for having them.--I pick at my nails. My toes. My cuticle beds. Anything to break off a piece of me that feels sick. It's not a way to heal.I was here.--My neighbors see different sides of me. The ones in the front see me at my worst: late, impatient. Someone is always crying on the way to or from the car. The neighbors to the rear hear me: soft and engaged. Teaching about leaves or birds or how everyone makes mistakes. "It's ok. Accidents happen," carried so sweetly from my lips on the air past their windows, perhaps, on the late afternoon wheeze of August.I was here.--I leave traces of myself everywhere. Notes on a page. Toys organized in neat muslin bags. Sand on the floor of my father's garage that is never as tidy as he'd like because of me. We don't want to be forgotten. We leave our marks on everything: tiny pencils with teeth marks. I was here. My father hates tattoos and I've never wanted one anyways. I leave my mark on other things.-The ocean in the summer draws me in. I spy chocolate in my pantry and feel the same way. I just have to have some.I was here.--I told Scott I flipped someone off the other day and he laughed and said, "You need to tone it down". I laughed and said, "How do you know?" I was here.