Suck the Marrow

Suck the Marrow

Winter is over and spring is here in a glorious clarity that has me feeling punch drunk and gracious, grateful but wanting more.  So take a pledge with me, fearless reader, to suck the marrow out of each and every day between now and November.  We will live into this feeling fully, spring though the summer, until falling leaves and cool weather soothe us back into the comfort of hearth and home.  We will look back on this time with no regrets and will leave nothing on the table.  Are you with me?

I’m a believer in list making.  I love adding to lists, but also checking off with a click of the tongue and flip of the wrist, bumping the “to do’s” into the “did it” column.  So make a “Suck the Marrow Out of Summer List” with me. Then get out there, make no apologies and suck the marrow out of every blessed moment of it.  Here’s my list:

#1 RIDE YOUR BIKE

I just got Miss Betty out of the garage for the first time this season.  I ran a hand over her white frame, hung her wicker panniers from her rack and took her for al little spin around the neighborhood.  We dropped a dress and tux shirt off at the neighborhood cleaners then instead of coming straight home, made a quick swoop down to Lake Harriet. 

We won Miss Betty at a charity auction exactly one year ago.  If Jackie Kennedy rode a bike to her wedding ceremony, she would have been astride Miss Betty.  She is all portrait collar, and cotton organza.  She’s an Electra 3 speed Amsterdam with Alexander Girard’s bright bouquets of tulips and daisies painted on the frame, seat and chain guard.  We gave her to our oldest daughter for a graduation gift but she (Miss Betty) wasn’t up to an Olympia, Washington college scene, so we traded bikes.  Miss Betty is here in Minneapolis with me, and my old Diamondback is in the Northwest, collecting cobwebs as my daughter learns to longboard.   

Miss Betty does not commute to work with me, she waits for special occasions, bike dates, yoga class, jaunts to farmers markets and whirls around the lakes.   So since my face was drinking its full of vitamin D laced sunshine and I was wearing a polka dot dress we rode.  Past gardens, spring green lawns, consequential houses on the parkway to the lake.   “Ride Your Bike” is first on my “Suck the Marrow Out of Summer” List because there’s no better feeling than being windshield and petrol- free.  

#2  NAP WITH CONVICTION

On a hammock, lawn chair or at your favorite beach, sink into a drool-pooling, open mouthed, throat warbling, snore provoking nap.   Open your armpits to the sky in sweet surrender.  So what if you didn’t shave and forgot deodorant, breathe deeply and savor the pungent blessing of summer’s sweet kiss.  

My favorite nap place is a hammock overlooking Round Lake in Hayward, Wisconsin where my in-laws have a lake place.   I begin by staring up through the undersides of the green canopy of leaves, then drift off to sleep.  Usually I am awaken by a small person curling up beside me.  

Often my napping is an avoidance tactic.  I dodge chores pretty effectively by just finding my place, stretching out and letting sleep overtake me.  Who in their right mind wakes someone sleeping the afternoon away on a hammock?  Try it.  It’s an art.  Find your place and claim it with conviction.  You’ve earned it. 

#3 RUN LIKE A KID

My friend Colleen told me that she loved the feel of running.  “Remember how it felt”, she asked “to jump and slap the door frame?”  I picture her pigtails, freckles, hell on wheels at 12 running through the halls at school, slapping her way to recess.  It’s the feeling of being invincible.  Kids have this.  We adults catch whiffs of it that bring us back to that time and place when we are skipping outside to be first at the tetherball pole or the basketball court. 

So run like you can slap those door frames.  This does not work well for me, unfortunately, I pee when I run, and its worse when I jump (pardon me while I take a Kegal).  But I love watching a runner riding a beautiful stride like silk banners unfurling in the wind.  So run for me and for all the other running failures out here.  And while you’re at it slap a few door frames on the way.

This is by no means a complete list.  There will be a second, maybe third installment of the “Suck the Marrow Out of Summer” list.  But I intend to get out there each and every day and wring every drop of spring and summer out like an old wet rag.  So how will you live it fully?  

Earworm Du Jour -- “L.O.V.” by Fitz and the Tantrums was the song going through my head as I circled Lake Harriet on Miss Betty.