Heat makes my skin sticky. I've never been a fan of tacky-feeling things. Something about the sensation drives me cuckoo-bananas. The hot, damp mugginess of summer makes it impossible to escape.
As I write this, I sit as still as a statue, sans my digits clicking-clacking across the keys. My stock-stillness is an effort to prevent sweat from prickling through my pores.
Despite the clamminess, I've been thinking of all the summer things I plan to do.
Cancun, naked swimming with one of my dearest friends, and a birthday road trip to visit earth's oldest beings, Sequoias. Then we'll chase the final remnants of summer away, traipsing through New England in early October.
I usually start future-tripping and dreaming of Autumn in mid-June.
I'm a September baby, so fall feels like my New Year. Pumpkin-flavored everything, fuzzy sweaters, cozy nights bundled from foot to head.
Like a fine wine... blah, blah, blah
"I can't believe I'm almost 50," I've been saying that for nearly a decade. Now here I am —for real, for real.
I mean, I'm cool with aging. But I don't feel like a grown-ass half-century-old woman.
I still remember how summer seemed to drag on forever in Elementary school. Nothing but space and opportunity to soak up the sun and run wild and free —just as long as you were home before the streetlights came on.
"The days pass slowly, but the years fly by."
My relationship with time is different now. The seasons are more palpable, and I am seasonal, too. My energy levels ebb and flow with the spell. And I feel better when I honor my place in nature.
Meditation has played a big part in that.
Sometimes, when I sit cross-legged following the rise and fall of my fleshy belly, all these seemingly inconsequential moments that I thought were gone float back to the surface. Except, this time, I'm watching things happen instead of experiencing them —the past is brilliant like that.
And while I am not happy for the shitty parts, I am grateful for the growth.
Modify. Redefine. Acculturate.
Yesterday, I baked sourdough brownies. I didn't have cocoa powder, so I used Masala Hot Cocoa, and when I couldn't scrounge 50g's of that, I added Hazelnut Hot Cocoa to the mix. Coupled with melted milk chocolate and Irish butter, the brownies were delish.
Relationships have taught me the value of improvisation. There is no exact recipe for how to relationship or live well. It's a constant adaptation of working with what you've got.
That's probably the best and most important takeaway I've gleaned from the 18,215 days I have lived in this body.
As a young cook, trying to recreate the meals I watched my mother make, I didn't know how to ad lib in the kitchen. My palate was underdeveloped. I had no concept of flavor, texture, acidity, spice, or temperament. Those are skills you develop over time with copious amounts of errors and practice.
Much like relating, loving, and being.
Soup and Ego
The first time I made Tortilla Soup, I added a little orange pepper to give it a little zing. I had never cooked with a habanero before —no concept of temperament. The soup smelled amazing, but the spice was so numbing that it was impossible to taste any flavor.
During the first semester of my senior year, I fooled around with a guy; I'll call him Kian. He was tall, dark, handsome adjacent, and lanky. By all accounts, Kian was a nerd —bookish, awkward, and oblivious. And he was totally into me. He was emotionally intelligent, at least as much as one can be at 17, which is very different from my usual draws. Kian openly expressed. There was not a sliver of ambiguity in the way he felt about me. That was refreshing. Naturally, I cast myself as the ambivalent one.
Kian all but worshipped me, and I took full advantage of that. I was being pursued for the first time in my angsty teenage life, so I feigned disinterest. I made him miserable for being the kind of guy I wanted —available. He eventually got tired of my shit and let our budding romance flitter in the rearview.
That fall, I started college. I was so excited about moving into the dorms and being 100% in charge of myself. I trailed the campus halls, all by my lonesome, hoping to see a familiar face. I bumped into "Kim," a girl I kicked it with in junior high, and "Nita," my 10th-grade bestie. And then I saw Kian.
I wasn't sure if it was him initially because he was different. He wasn't wearing his favorite outfit —a non-distinct white tee and super short burgundy running shorts with three big yellow letters stitched across the butt that read "USC."
Going to the University of Southern California was Kian’s dream, so he loved those shorts. But maybe the cost of admission was too high because he was at Cal State Northridge wearing a very flattering pair of Gibeau jeans, a polo, and a fitted ball cap, pulled low, shielding his eyes. I wouldn't have recognized him if he hadn't said, "Staceyyyy," drawing out the end like he always did.
"Kian?" I said, still unsure if this was the same nerdy, too-short-wearing guy that followed me around like a puppy dog just two months ago. But this was Kian 2.0 —same guy but way more put together.
He was flanked by two girls, Jessie and Lisa. The threesome had gotten friendly during Summer Bridge. We exchanged pleasantries, but Kian and friends were going to an off-campus party with some upperclassmen, so he didn’t have time to chat.
“Maybe another time,” he said.
Whenever I saw Kian around campus, he seemed to have a different girl draped over his arm. He’d throw an obligatory nod my way, but we never caught up. His confidence had grown, and everyone around him seemed to be magnetized by the brilliance that our high school classmates were too blind to see. I had been too busy feeling myself to see it back then, too.
No concept of temperament.
Practice makes Better
Many years ago, I decided that getting good at relationships was my life's work, purpose, and reason for existing. Yet, moments ago, I spoke to my daughter with a barbed tongue.
Mastery is not the goal, so I practice. With my attitude and body language. With my words, verbal and written. With intention and my as-soon-as-I-realize apologies.
I seem to make more relationship-ing blunders in the summertime. The tingly sensation of stifling heat ruddies my cheeks and my constitution. Or maybe it's just an excuse. There is no excuse. And so I keep practicing, getting it wrong, and getting it almost right, and practicing some more.
This Substack used to be an RSS feed for articles I write online. But, like Kian, it’s morphing into something else.
Moving forward, I'll share tales about navigating life, love, and everything in between.
Practice Makes Better will remain free, but am building a community behind the paywall. I hope you will consider becoming a paid subscriber if you find value in what you read. I encourage you to "like," "share," and "comment," which will help others find these musings.
Thank you for reading till the end. I appreciate you.