Not Quite Yet 7/30/2023

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I am having a significant case of the “almost”. Let me explain. I am at that time of year when all sorts of things are getting ready to begin.  All sorts of happenings are right around the corner. All the busyness is visible, but just off in the distance.  This is giving me something that is possibly akin to anxiety. However, I usually give anxiety negative connotations. Isn’t that it’s nature?  I can’t think that anyone thinks fondly of anxiety. But whatever it is I am feeling is not negative. It does have a touch of nerves because one can’t really know how all the future days are going to go exactly no matter how well planned they may be.  I suppose describing it like teetering at the edge of a cliff is far too dramatic, so I shan’t do that, however I do feel like I on the brink of something. It isn’t necessarily foreboding or thrilling, it’s just, for lack of a better word, the unknown.

I suppose the brunt of it is because my daughter starts school next week. We are traveling on to the adventure that is second grade.  I am thankful that we are not faced with the angst that came with kindergarten but then again, a new teacher and new class (though hopefully filled with familiar faces) does present a bit of a question mark in my mind. She is friendly and kind though. She is also a very good student despite the occasion of inherited daydreaming. She does also seem to be a bit chatty with the chums from time to time. She stays quite ahead of the curve as far as her academics go so, until that changes, I am not likely to hold her genetic dispositions against her.  She doesn’t seem to be nervous about it, so I don’t suppose it’s reasonable of me to be, but I never claimed to be reasonable when it came to worry if I’m honest.  I know I shouldn’t, but it doesn’t seem that the majority of my brain cares what I know.

But it’s not even just school starting that feels so significantly imminent.  I suppose it’s also the fact it feels like summer is quickly vanishing.  And while I loathe summer other than its usefulness for lake trips or swimming in the pool, it feels like I should have done more with it and now it’s slipping through my fingers.  I only get a limited number of summers where we’ll be a family of 3 to do fun things and now this one is vanishing like a vapor on the breeze.  I don’t even like summer, but I feel like this one went so quickly and was so busy that I didn’t do enough with it. True, we are going to wedge in some summery activities into a weekend or two even after school begins but, for all intents and purposes this summer is almost gone.  I don’t like summer, but I don’t want it ripped from me either.

Even nature is in an almost phase.  Around here, the hay has been cut. But it isn’t yet in bales that look like fluffy little cubes or in my preferred shape, the giant cinnamon roll. Right now, it’s just fields of cut grass in various stages of drying. It is hay, but in a way it isn’t.  In my mind, it’s just grass until it’s baled.  It’s almost hay.  The cotton fields too are in bloom but until they resemble endless fields of snowball adorned stems, they’re just ornamental blooms.  The muscadines (a wild grape for those of you who may not be in the know) are just green orbs on vines devouring their surroundings.  There is even some unknown tree that is on the edge of my back yard that is producing some sort of unknown fruit that isn’t ripe.  Well, it isn’t ripe according to my father.  He had some guesses as to what the specimen was but after research, he was inaccurate in his opinions.  The best we can figure it is some sort of wild plum.  Being the bold fellow that he is, he gave the fruit a taste. He said, whatever it was, that it wasn’t ripe yet.  Don’t ask me how he is certain about this assessment.  But even then, yet another case of almost there, but not.

Maybe I am being silly. Maybe this feeling of being nearly there is some sort of ridiculous overreaction. It’s interesting though, I’m not sure I’ve ever had this exact feeling before.  What is it that is ahead that has these butterflies in my stomach? Am I having some sort of magical psychic moment predicting some impending future something or other?  Yeah, I am going to have to say that’s not very likely. I think it’s simply the season I am in. We’re at the end of one era and about to embark upon another and that can give a bit of stress.  I shouldn’t find this off putting. But here we are with me looking at changing times and squinting suspiciously. I’m almost there though. I’m almost to the big unfrosted cinnamon rolls of hay. It won’t be all that long before the cotton fields are white.  It will be all too soon that my daughter is well into the throes of second grade.  No, I don’t suppose I should let looking to the crowded horizon phase me.  This will be one of many seasons like this. We are almost there and will be again soon before I know it.