In the Depths of the Doldrums

August in Portugal is like...

Sailors feared it for centuries, the band of windless water near the equator where their ships would stall for humid weeks with not a breath of motion in the sails. They call it the “Intertropical Convergence Zone” now because all modern names are boring, but this stagnant seascape used to be called the Doldrums.

I know nothing of sailing, I have to google it all, but I do know doldrums. I know the feeling of heat in your head, the sluggish circles in which your thoughts swim all through these scorching weeks.

In the States, school has resumed and my social feeds are dripping with First Day photos of my friends’ children, from the littlest wobblers with brand-new backpacks to the near-adults dredging thrift stores for a sagging couch for their off-campus squats.

Class is in session from east coast to west but here in Europe, férias reign supreme. School bells don’t ring until mid-September in Portugal—in fact, we don’t even yet know what day Filha returns to school. September 16th-ish?

August in Europe is synonymous with summer vacation. No one can be counted on to get a damn thing done. The skies burn blue, the winds blow hot, and everyone ends up wet somewhere: pool, pond, lake, river, sea, ocean, whatever waters we can reach.

Where I once dreaded this month as the end of summertime freedom, I now look forward to its dearth of action. Right now, we have nowhere we need to be and I am soaking up every idle minute.

In the spring of 2023 a big tractor showed up to dig a hole in the ground out back where the sun shines its hardest on our 3000 square meters of land. Pool construction was complete by July and we spent the dregs of last summer learning how to be people who had a pool.

I wouldn’t claim we’re experts yet—Marido would say that Filha and I need to hold up our end of the vacuuming schedule a bit better—but we’re getting there. My legs and belly are even a color verging on brownish this year, still (at least) six shades lighter than my arms and face but they’re not as translucent as they used to be.

Just a couple of hours ago I spun in a lazy circle, pool noodle crooked beneath my neck, while Filha perfected her dive through a stack of inner tubes and Marido nursed an iced drink in the shade. For a time I forgot about the random assortment of Things That Still Need to Get Done and stopped worrying about all the usual things we adults obsess over—budgets and tax brackets and career choices and parenting skills and aging parents and vulnerable friends and elections and genocides and climate change and immigration status and the mental health of our children.

For a time I just let it all go and let myself feel weightless. I drifted, destination-less.

I know the doldrums won’t last forever. The winds will pick up and school will start and I’ll need to tick off all those To-Do boxes.

But in the meantime I’m embracing not stagnation exactly, but stillness. Slowness. I’m being gentle with myself. This year has been A Lot. I’m letting myself feel that.

I’m embracing a breezy mumuu. I’m saying yes to gelado. I’m drinking gallons of iced tea. (Ok, that one’s not really new.) I’m taking myself less seriously. I’m watching Bluey episodes with Filha. I’m writing 500 words or less. I’m listening to music that makes me remember how it felt to be 23 and full of possibility.

Music sidebar #1: I am yet one more convert to the cult of Chappell Roan, and if you don’t know who that is then you don’t know what you’re missing and you should definitely take a whirl around the Pink Pony Club because you’d have to stop the world to stop the feeling, ok?

……

Music sidebar #2: My friend Sarah says there are 2 kinds of people in the world, those who can’t live without an ever-present soundtrack of music and those who can. I definitely fall into the camp of people who enjoy the silence. I have my musical passions, but they are small in number and closely held and I can drive for hours without listening to a single tune. That said, when I do love a band or a musician I am ALL IN, I go so hard. So circle back to Music Sidebar #1 and do yourself a solid by clicking a couple of those links, yeah?

I was talking with a friend—a fellow middle-aged lady—the other day, about how much we are carrying on our shoulders, in our hearts, by the time we reach this stage of life. We bear a lot of burdens, sometimes a lot of baggage, and it grows wearisome. Not that we were all clicking our heels completely carefree when we were mid-twentified, but back then we had only ourselves to worry about.

I’ve been reading some of the journals I kept when I was 25 and 26 lately, for another writing project, and my god was I self-obsessed. Like, I kind of hated myself? But also I was the only thing I could think about. That and whether this boy or that one liked me and whether I might find True Love or be doomed to die alone. Of course, I was also worried about whether or not Jesus was mad at me back at that stage of my life, but my point is that even with all my twenty-something sturm und drang, I had it pretty good. I had it pretty easy. My burdens were truly not that heavy to drag around.

And so as I spin in the cool blue of my afternoon pool, trying to remember the right arm motions for Hot To Go, I acknowledge the heaviness that I’ve been bearing. I give myself leave to lay it down for a minute. To be a European in August. To stretch myself the full length of these doldrums and find some ease.

---

If you want to support my work…

You can choose from a couple of tiers of paid subscriptions. In addition to my undying gratitude for your support, you’ll get more of my writing, which is what (I assume) you’re here for! Once a month for paid subscribers only, I will post an excerpt from my memoir-in-progress. The first one is here, for free, if you want a preview.
OR
If you’re not into paid subscriptions, but you’d still like to show support every once in a while, you can leave me a tip via Venmo or Tipeee.
OR
If you want to carry on reading these posts for free because you can’t or shan’t pay, that’s perfectly fine. I do not hide Long Scrawl essays behind a paywall.

NO MATTER WHAT: Thank you for reading. Thank you for telling me when my writing means something to you. That matters most of all.

---

Copyright © 2024 LaDonna Witmer