It’s summer.

Summer is hard… hard as winter is for some of my friends. The long, long days bear down and the blocks of sunshine crush me.

Work and school have carried  me through thus far, but work is ending this week and I just handed in the final project for one of my classes. (I have the final exam for the other one on Thursday.)

The world does not seem to be going to hell in a handbasket; it’s already there. Ripping sobbing children away from the arms of their parents sounds like something from Ceaușescu’s Romania, not the “home of the brave and the land of the free.”

Australia and Canada both had histories of tearing native children away from their homes and having them be fostered in white families. They came to see the error of their ways — I had thought we were beyond that.

And so on… life is getting worse for the people who can least afford it. And in a coversation with a family member yesterday, I learned that other family members were boycotting Disney because “they have gay days and things like that.” I can’t figure out if I am more sad (not suprised, given the family members involved) or furious.

And I can’t help feeling like I spent twenty-five years of my life in a job, only to be downsized. Or turfed out due to mandatory retirement.

And then, today.

Killing time between when I dropped Railfan off for his exam and when I had to drop off my project (we go to different schools) I saw the trees. I saw the crape myrtles: white and pale lavender, the very first crape myrtles blossoms of the year.

These were early.  Crape myrtles usually don’t start blooming until the end of July. They’re late summer blossoms, signalling with hope the changing of the seasons. I love them because they are beautiful, all lacy gentility, but I also love them because they whisper to me.

Their message?

“Hold on…. Hold on…. Hold on…. Change is coming.”

Maybe I should listen to them more closely.