As Labor Day approaches, I find myself reflecting on the summer that has been. “Same difference” seems an apropos way to describe it.
Last summer was filled with care for my elderly mother-in-law and her estate. And I had to deal with one physical malady after another, which was unusual to say the least.
Mother-in-law passed this February, and this summer has been different. For several years, we had developed a “routine of care” for her and her belongings, which quite frankly was consuming in many ways.
This summer we have gradually been playing “catch-up” with housework and yard-work, which had been set aside as of secondary importance, relative to various care-giving duties. Coping with the ninety-degree weather is a perfect example of “same difference.” The differences from years past are negligible, but we think they are significant.
The early twentieth century use of the phrase, “same difference” originated as a witty way of combining the concepts “same thing” and “no difference.” So, there is little difference in how we feel ninety-degree weather.
There were some ninety-degree days when we just had to sit in the air conditioning and stew, literally. There is a reason for naming heavy humidity, oppressive. Humidity just sits on you like an elephant sitting on a mouse.
But was this summer any different than last, as to heat and humidity? Same difference, I’d say.
The yard-work part of this summer has changed. We’ve been able to “keep up” more than in the past several years of preoccupation with my husband’s mom who was afflicted with increasingly debilitating dementia.
For me, it started with the erection of a “corn tent” for our grandson. It was placed near the firewood piles.
I use the word “piles” loosely as I have created Jenga-like puzzle stacks in our woodlot. I did this exercise for many years but just couldn’t manage it for the last couple of years, what with other areas of life taking precedence.
My husband is quite proud of my wood stacking skills. He even sends pictures to his friends. It’s my penchant for order and love of puzzle-solving, that fuels this “natural” skill.
At any rate, as one chore completed, seems to lead to the next chore, it was Charlie’s corn tent that led to my need to clean up the woodlot. I wanted a safe space for him to play.
The corn tent seemed like a clever idea and Charlie loves it. However, so do the squirrels. They conveniently chewed holes in each corner and side of the tent to gain entrance to a treasure trove of free corn. Since most animals don’t defecate where they eat, I just threw up my hands and said, “oh well.” The tent wasn’t expensive, and Charlie has had a fun summer with Grammy’s creation.
As the summer wanes, I have become a pruning machine. The growth from early and prolific rain has been phenomenal.
Many of our trees, shrubs, and plants have become overgrown in the last couple of years. I made it my mission that before Labor Day I would have this growth under control.
I have become quite intimate with the ground, as I sit on it. I’m all about the “grounding” movement and my bottom has become one with it.
While pruning the underside of many shrubs and trees in our vast Arboretum-like yard, I began by scooching around the perimeter of the plant on my backside rather than bending over in a semi-permanent U-shape. Then I remembered we came into a little garden trolley which I then toted with me to every tree and shrub. Some tools make our jobs easier.
I will say that the bugs have given me a slight reprieve this summer, notwithstanding the little green repellent patches which my son-in-law gifted me with. I’ve only had a few mosquito and spider bites, which thank God have not been of the toxic variety of last summer.
Speaking of the same, but different, it was a few years ago that when tidying up an underbrush beneath a grove of pine trees at my mother-in-law’s house, unbeknownst to me, I triggered a severe allergy to urushiol, the oil in the poison ivy plant. Those of you who have followed my columns will remember my anguish with the aftermath.
This year when tidying up our old apple orchard, I noticed a familiar woody vine with big browning leaves, literally attached and seemingly growing into a Braeburn apple tree. Yellow caution lights went off in my head before I dug in and ripped that thing off the tree.
Thank you, Google, for clarifying that that vine is none other than an old poison ivy vine. What to do? Touching it is out of the question. I learned my lesson from that one. But phantom itching has taken hold of my mind.
What about tidying up plants that gets me into trouble? Sometimes I think that maybe nature just wants to be left alone.
Then there was the snake, a garter snake, but a snake nonetheless, that jumped out of the leaf debris in our cluster of white birch trees in the front yard? I was glad that hubby was involved in that endeavor, he took the fear away and made it a giggle.
What’s that iffy definition of insanity – “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome?” While a popular idiom, I don’t know if it’s insanity, but it does seem to be a universal mental health oxymoron, “same difference,” that is.
My mother-in-law may be gone, and this summer is nearly gone, but everything has a way of sticking around in memory or in symbols or the cycles of life. Same difference seems to be one of the few permanent facts of life, which seems to be going nowhere. I think maybe that’s a good thing.