Yep, this is the summer of abeyance.

The house isn’t quite painted. Decisions about staying or going are waiting until the green is replaced by blue on ALL FOUR sides. “And on the garage,” the Spouse says.

The grapes aren’t quite ripe. Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog hangs around the arbor, so they must be close. I caught her using her nibble teeth on the bird netting. “You’re going to have to wait,” I told her. Unbelieving she licked her chops and glanced at the fat clumps of red grapes.

My grant proposal MIGHT be funded but we won’t know for sure until October, when the federal budget passes or fails.  “Just hold tight,” the grant program officer told me. My heart thumped HARD twice, then pattered away a little quicker than normal. “Have you ever had a heart attack or stroke?” the Doc asked at a recent check-up…

Amazon hasn’t shipped our package of dog poop pick-up bags yet. One thousand small black bags for one thousand offenses against the neighborhood. I’m carefully hoarding our few remaining bags. “Oh no, you are DONE,” I tell Hamish the Corgi as he thinks about marking another lawn on evening walkies.

I might need to go to Alaska on business. I might drive to Virginia for family. We might take the Mighty Mebe on a road trip to Boston. We might be out of half and half for tomorrow’s coffee. I might need a new outfit for dinner out on our 20^th wedding anniversary – “Isn’t it funny,” the Spouse helpfully stated, “how I can just put on my same old suit but you need a new outfit every time.”

Advice givers and poets might say to live in the now. Don’t tell ME to live in the now. I live plenty in the now. Right NOW I’m working to accomplish what is DUE NOW. Right NOW I can smell the aromas (stinks?) of hot lavender, French thyme, and asphalt floating in the front window with 92 degree heat pulses. I see the late summer sun battling with enormous cloud formations piling over the lake. I hear my neighbor blasting epic sneezes in his kitchen.

Abeyance, urgency, tranquility, reminiscence. These are the life states I balance, or usually FAIL to balance. Too much tranquil thinking leads to greater urgency. Too much abeyance removes the ability to reminisce. Urgency supersedes all.

I’ll take a little abeyance here and there. Abeyance means hope and change and renewal. Abeyance is an ever-bloating bubble of potential big and small, a grand swelling of options – sure when all fails the swelling is like a necrotic plague bubo but let’s not linger there – SOMETIMES the swelling is gloriously buoyant like a pre-Hindenburg Zepplin…and ok  I’m not sure that analogy is going in a good direction either…

But. Abeyance. Hold tight. Hold fast. And smell the sun warmed herbs.