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After two, two days off.
The end of a summer cold. A break.
A friend from my MFA visiting Saturday, lunch in Jeffersonville and a hike to the waterfall, wading to mid thighs while talking.
Yesterday laundry and editing, an afternoon swim in the river, against the current and still it pushed me back. Reading until I fell asleep, book in hand. The heat turned up.
No excuses, just sometimes there is a wall, and instead of walking around it, or barging into it, or climbing over, you just sit down. Lean into it. I forgot I loved words for a couple days. What happens when you lose a sense of magic... does the magic continue, a river to fall into on a sweltering day?
This is the land of swimming holes. There is a secret one, with cool fresh water and no leeches about 7 minutes from here. Oh, and leeches are a thing. And ticks. Nature in all its gory. I am not even sure what either looks like, but in some weird way of course I'll know it if one decides to encamp on my body.
Today, I heard there might be rain again. After lunch I started walking to my car to check my windows and drops the size of dollars fell. It is no joke to say buckets. By the time I got to my car a short block away, closed the back window and ran back to the Red Mill, I looked like I had taken a shower, Just drenched, 8 people watching me run back. A woman had her keys and was afraid to go out and close her side window, so I grabbed them, went back out into it and closed it for her. Because at a certain point, you cannot get more wet than wet, skirt drenched, hair like a muppet. shirt ringable. Laughing.
I am reading the new Harper Lee novel. Because the visiting writer loaned me his advance copy. And it is lovely and complicated. Fiction, what a treat. Skipped dinner with everyone, went to the local burger joint and sat reading in the sun that ended the day with more humidity and warmth, a cajun blue cheese burger, no bun, and salad, washed down with a beer, reading Go Set A Watchman. I think everyone might need to read it.
So my slump is over. Sort of. Don't want to jinx it one way or the other. Also, I found this on Wikipedia:
A slump is a form of mass wasting that occurs when a coherent mass of loosely consolidated materials or rock layers moves a short distance down a slope.
A short distance down a slope. Now that is a definition I can get behind.
slump
[sluhmp]
verb
1. to drop or fall heavily; collapse: Suddenly she slumped to the floor. (flop, flump, sink)
2. to assume a slouching, bowed, or bent position or posture
3. to decrease or fall suddenly and markedly, as prices or the market. (plummet, timble, drop)
4. to decline or deteriorate, as health, business, quality, or efficiency.
5. to sink into a bog, muddy place, etc., or through ice or snow.
6. to sink heavily, as the spirits.
noun
7. an act or instance of slumping.
8. a decrease, decline, or deterioration.
9. a period of decline or deterioration.
10. any mild recession in the economy as a whole or in a particularindustry.
11.a period during which a person performs slowly, inefficiently, orineffectively, especially a period during which an athlete or team failsto play or score as well as usual.
12. a slouching, bowed, or bent position or posture, especially of theshoulders.
13. a landslide or rockslide.
Origin
1670-80; orig., to sink or fall into a bog or mud; perhaps imitative (cf. plump2); probably imitative and related to Norwegian slumpe ‘to fall.’
