My other career; and favorite Vivaldi

Concerto In G Minor for Violin, String Orchestra and Continuo, Op. 8, No. 2, RV 315, "L'estate" (Summer): I. Allegro Non Molto

as performed by Joshua Bell, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields & John Constable Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

This song makes me wish I had studied classical ballet and pointe for much longer than I did.  I am stronger now and more disciplined but I haven't heard of a 33year old ballerina so I'll stick with aerobics.

I am constructing my playlist for next week's water aerobics class and the "theme request" for our music was "Summer".   As an FYI this weekend's themes were colors and sunshine.

This song is beautiful and I think totally captures summertime no matter where you live.  In fact all the songs on my itunes when I search "summer" seem to be less than 100bpm.  That's right, slow.

 Vivaldi's "Summer" is slow and almost methodic, like taking steps in the desert in the obliterating midday heat.  Unknown birds and insects whine of the sun's oppression.  Like a group of aproned old women rocking on a wooden porch with glasses of icy sweet tea melting in their knuckl-y hands.  Then it picks up like you're on the back of a bumble bee or dragon fly, lighter than air; gossamer wings sparkling unknown hues of the rainbow in the hot direct sunlight.  The fast breeze that comes with flight is refreshing yet hard work.

Or you're at the beach watching lazy waves roll onto the seashore as children dirty themselves up in brown sand when the wind picks up and sends hats and buckets and sandwich wrappers flying.

Or anywhere else.

Peace returns.  Dogs are panting eagerly in jackets of shaded heat.  Their paws are caked with dried mud and keeping both eyes open begs of too much work.  They nose around in dry dirt for a reprieve; muzzles chocolated when an iridescent green-throated hummingbird appears at mach speed from nowhere.  Dancing among orange-trumpeted flowers, suspended in air seemingly wingless.  Nervous.  The dogs are too hot to notice.  What could be so necessary to justify that movement?  Fluttering away with the urgency of something imminent.  The heat remains unforgiving.

Afternoon clouds roll in from behind the Catalinas.  Wind rises.  The monsoon rains tease. Grey and spitting almost-refreshment, satiny ribbons of relief hardly reach the ground.  The winds return to dance with limber swaying trees.  Lost lovers reunited only for a brief, intense, sacred moment.  Rain returns with sadness and intensity to meet the needy deadline of all things to-be-living.  Her fingertips brush with the Earth's bare back.  A job.  Her duty.  A brief commitment cashed while falling from the heavens.  Freely plummeting to her end, rain potentiates life on the ground.

The days are long.  The nights are sleepless.  Rivers form, seas swell, plants and trees and flowers bloom.  Summer begins for its end, and to begin again.