LAST Words ANN OWENS IS A WRITER, CREATIVE GENIUS, ENTREPRENEUR, MOTHER, AND WIFE WHO ENJOYS PONDERING WHAT MAKES THE WORLD CLICK. Snow White must not have lived in the South spring alludes us with green yards, pleasant evenings and no bugs. Then comes July. Hi, my name is Ann, and I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, a/k/a S.A.D. And the people collectively said “Hi, Ann.” Ok, so I have not been diagnosed or anything, but I am pretty sure I have it. S.A.D. is basically a depression – a funk, if you will – that occurs with the change of seasons. For the overwhelming majority of folks, S.A.D. kicks in during the cold months and especially around the holidays. Not me. Even though I have lived here almost 39 years, this transplanted Midwesterner has never, ever gotten used to the heat, and that is not likely to change. I love the fall, winter and most of spring, but I hate summer. I despise heat. Heat makes me sad and mad and say ugly words… even more than usual. Spring is one of my really happy months, and I get all excited about decorating and yard work, trips with the fam, cookouts, and planting like a mad woman. I cannot express enough how much I do not have a green thumb. Nope. But every stinking year I spend too much money on plants, cute little yard art, and bag after bag of potting soil. I pull out the canning jars, clean out the grill, trim up the scruffy herb remnants in my old, cracked pots and fantasize about wearing sundresses with little skinny stick arms that are perfectly bronzed. Last year was a big spring for me because I had recently lost 20 pounds and the world was my daffodil filled oyster. I was like “The Queen of Southern Living Gardens.” I was a woman with dirt under her nails who would battle sweat and bugs to keep her sweet little flowers alive, a woman who even cut the grass with a push mower because I was super cool and tough as nails. It was my year and I was going to battle the dreaded S.A.D. months! I was absolutely obsessed with buying half-dead plants and nursing them back to health. My porches and yard looked better than ever before, and I was crazy proud of it. Fresh herbs were available for immediate kitchen access, flowers were blooming and thriving, bird feeders were full of seed, and cute little striped red pillows were on my perpetually swept front porch. Vintage and rusting yard furniture was cleaned up and painted a cute teal blue and, as if to say, “You get it, girl!” a lovely climbing vine volunteered on my porch fence and showered me daily with tiny red trumpet flowers. Oh, the joy! I went out every morning and watered and weeded and basked in the glory of my hard work as I walked the yard talking to the bees and the hummingbirds. Snow White, that was me, and I was unstoppable. Why had I not done this before? This was so rewarding! You want to talk flowers? Heck yeah, I was prepared to do my own YouTube show on gardening! Sweat? Pffft...I laughed at sweat. Bring it on! In case you don’t already know it, spring in the South is a mirage, a fantasy, a calm before the storm. Spring is the precursor to – dum dum DUMMMMM – “THE SEASON OF THE DEVIL, YA’LL.” {Shudder} By June, I started to feel it coming, but I still pushed through. I occasionally talked myself out of cutting the grass (eh, let Karl do it), grilling (going out makes so much sense, doesn’t it?) and yardwork (yeah, so there are a few weeds and the flowers are a bit droopy, but I’ll catch you tomorrow, my friends! Don’t worry, I’m still with ya, so let’s get up that bunting and get patriotic. WhooHooo!) July. Ok, so those two plants died, but I’m pretty sure they had a fungus or something. And seriously, how much do those #$%# birds eat anyway because I JUST filled their feeders up! Big fat something or another is eating my mint that I was growing for mojitos, and my Gerbera Daisies that were so green and gorgeous are now brown around the edges like those chocolate chip cookies I hilariously decided to bake in my 98 degree kitchen. And, like an exclamation point on the end of a very bad sentence, every night it is the same routine – I turn the air down, he turns the air up, I throw the sheet off, I put the sheet back on, bathroom break, splash water on back of neck, I sneak out and turn the air down, aaaaaand repeat. August. I pretty much hate everyone and bras. I cannot breathe. Gnats, mosquitos and wasps are the devil’s pets, and if you asked me to describe my yard, the term ‘post-apocalyptic’ comes to mind. Everything everywhere is dead or just darn lucky. Please don’t ask me to go anywhere that involves an outdoor activity, and by “outdoor activity” I mean getting in and out of the car. No, I don’t want to come to your cookout, and I don’t want to come to the river, and I don’t want to go to the beach. I don’t like anyone touching my feet let alone slimy things that I can’t see. Chicken salad, watermelon and ice water is dinner four times a week–unless you suggest a restaurant…but that requires going outside, so…no. Summer is not good on my marriage either, just to be real. (I forgot, Karl doesn’t want me to write about him anymore in my articles, so I’m just going to call him “Bill” from now on.) Bill and I fight every single solitary summer about two things all the time over and over again: air conditioning and a pool that he won’t build. I mean, the way I look at it, a pool and a cool house are an investment in our marriage, my physical health, and my emotional stability. Apparently, those things are more important to me than they are to him. Just sayin’, BILL! So here it is, the cusp of S.A.D. 2017, and I’m thinking I’m not even going to try to do the whole Gardner Annie thing again this year. I mean, what’s the point? I found the 20 pounds I had lost last year, and we completely skipped one of the 3 months that I live for – winter – so it’s just not looking good for me this year at all. But if you should encounter me during my S.A.D. months, please do not be offended by anything I may say or do because it is the disease, after all. If you have a swimming pool, it would be so great if you invited me to live with you, uh, I mean…come for a swim. I swear that I can be super pleasant when I’m not sweating. P.S. No picture this time. Pretty sure one does not exist of me during the summer where I am smiling. True story. 144 Toombs County Magazine
20204RD
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