Cranky Season

Middle age

Photo copyright 2006 van Schouwen Associates, LLC

It's really only middle age if you are going to live to twice your current number of years, am I correct? I'm up to 110 now; that is, I will need to get that far if I am to avoid contemplating (right now, at 55) being what-comes-next, that thing after middle age.

Maybe that is part of what makes me cranky this summer. After all, summer is supposed to be my favorite season, and the things that are bothering me have the ring of being just a little too similar to the things that bother, shall we say, a person just BEYOND middle age, a person who is just sick and tired of… whatever.

Children

Children at the pool, putting their legs in the water during the Adult Swim ("I'm not swimming, am I?") or smartly shouting to one another, "I'm going to bang your mother!" 

These are kids whose heads are not even full-grown. As you may have guessed, they are also boys.

Auto exhaust

I mean REALLY. Can't they see what is coming out of the back of their cars?

Other

I could go on. Dust. Green beans that go liquid. Having to pee.

But it's not about the green beans, is it? Cranky Season is about the blindingly fast pace of days wasted, days squandered on being grumpy, on working, on driving vast miles in the car. 

It's a season I can flip the page on, and maybe I will. Maybe. 

Just don't push me.

©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.