The sun, she is beating down as if it's August, already. We're having to take cover in our little suite; shutting the blinds, blasting the fan, keeping the light off in the fishtank to keep its temperature down. At nights, I run a cool bath and soak in my own "tank" for a few minutes; go to bed still dripping with cold bathwater so as to dry off slowly and coolly under the sheet.
I am sporting a fine tan already, even though I slather on the sunscreen. My calf muscles are tight and firm from running. I am relaxed; buying plants, cleaning the apartment, loving the outdoors.
And I am jobless and living off my savings, again.
Having just re-read some of Anne Cameron's muscular Westcoast fiction (anyone tried her? I like it, but it's often pretty depressing), I feel slightly guilty. Guilty in an artsy-fartsy, work-when-I-feel-like-it, live-for-today kinda way.
The fact is, if it weren't for the money my granny left me, I couldn't relax like this. I'd be scouring Craigslist for another low-paying retail gig for the summer. What she left me paid for an online course, a computer program I needed, a few other things. But the rest is being used as I vowed it wouldn't be: groceries, rent, life.
I don't owe much and I don't have dependents. Therefore my life is my own, and if I want to have a lazy summer, so be it. I have time to do publicity for the upcoming Redboot tour (and I've been doing tons), to practice my instruments, to make my place look decent. These are all good things. I can leave on tour, fly to the east coast for a week, have band practice without having to beg for time off from a job that doesn't pay enough anyway.
But there's a little voice that says make the most of this. Make it count. If you have no job, then make sure you're doing the tings you want and need to do. Don't waste this by sleeping in, by getting flabby, by not going to parks and on hikes whenever you can.
I intend to listen to that voice as much as possible.
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