171: free verse on a summer off work

Three day weekends and summer vacations are always difficult for me. I excitedly anticipate the time off and then hit the hazard button of no schedule. I am a person who thrives on a schedule. And I'm also a person who will lazily stay up til 2am, sleep til 11am, and eat icecream every day if a higher purpose doesn't shake me into a more productive lifestyle.

School ended, I packed, and then off to Boston and Maine I went with a bunch of wonderful people from around the country that I have been building friendships with over the last two years. You know what it's like when you get back from vacation, especially one involving no sleep and seeing people you won't see again for awhile? You start hitting the return-to-normal blues. Combine that with absolutely nothing to do *cough* okay, I guess I could, you know, clean up these piles of clothes and papers, and, ok, lesson plan for history next school year, and, well, there is lots TO do, but nothing that MUST be done. Anyway, it's summer. And with summer comes adjustments. Some of it is glorious--like being able to cook for my family more (during the school year my mom, whose love language is firmly entrenched in "acts of service" makes my breakfast and lunch every single morning; summer is my time to reignite the homemaker in me and be a blessing back) and being able to hang out with my dog, who is currently depressed that I'm still awake but not depressed enough to go slink into the other room where sleeping is happening.

Summer is my opportunity to make wise choices. I'd rather have those choices imposed on me, like in a work schedule. And yet, don't you dare tell me what to do over my summer because I like making my own choices. See? Confusing.

I've been having fun lately journaling some of my thoughts in free verse. So here is my free verse on summer.

Waddle, waddle--Make Way for Ducklings in Boston Common!

Blank spaces
Canvas
Crevices
Where stone stood in solid unity before
Cracked open to allow space
Spread wide to open into summer

Sleep, time, plans
Trips, high, people
Return, restore, amiss
A crevice
A crack between the duties of the year
And the thrill of vacation wanderings
Now in no-man's land
A blank space to be filled.

Thoughts, hopes, habits
Others, conversations, input
Alone, yet not
Full of tasks put off
Yet empty of what is normally done

A canvas splotted with
Haphazard paint

Better, should be better
Summer, should be summer
Intentional, but zombie-ing aimlessly
Like a tumbleweed
Thither I go

Will I find the strength
The fortitude
The wisdom
To pain the canvas of summer well?

Will I rest
Be restored
Find grace and joy and peace
And unique to summer fun
Before the gap closes
And the solid ground of
A school teacher's schedule
Returns?

lobster traps at the end of a pier in Maine