The Dog Days of Discipline
August brings that sort of heat that decays the spirit. Like spring, the morning brings an air heavy with moisture—not of the sort that cools and soothes, but the sort that suffocates you in a blanket of your own sweat. Evenings do not bring respite from heat, but somehow increase it as though the ruddy sunsets were alight with the fires of Hell itself. Bugs—especially gnats and mosquitos—come aplenty, feasting on the fruit rotted on bush and vine as well as the blood and stench of our own resolve.
It is here then, amongst the last vestiges of life and growth before bounty closes the door on our sun-filled days and heralds the death of the season, when fruits not soon plucked find their way through over-ripe smells into our nostrils, mixing with the taste of the honeysuckle and lavender as an assault on our senses. In the distance, a thunderhead rolls across the sky, the silent lightning teasing rain and respite, but promising only danger.
With the easy fruit season behind and too soon to go apple-picking, the grass long-lost its veridian color—now the color of the coyote and bobcat through days long on sun and short on rain. Few enough pleasures linger into Autumn’s arrival. Yet, some remind me of my most favorite things to share with clients.
The sweet smell of that violet wisteria gone like a youthful romance that cannot survive past the summer break. Left behind now are only its thick, woody vines that wrap around live oak and porch in slow, deliberate coils, like my fingers around a client’s neck—beautiful and stifling in its grasp.
Then there’s the Hellvine—fiendish, orange-blossomed and unrelenting in its advance. Coils and consuming, leaving swollen and reddened skin that lingers for all who cross it. There isn’t a surface it won’t climb and cling to, and—like my striking canes and crops—it leaves its mark everywhere it touches.
One of my favorites is the Muscadine. One of the best treats in late summer, its thick, ropey vine makes wine that the palate savors. Moody as a summer night, a glass of that sweet vine recalls the warm, wet moans of those who feel my floggers.
And finally, no one can deny the Kudzu. Invasive, ever-present, and impossible to contain once planted. Farmers have tried to fight it with root-pulling, with fire, with herbicide. Nothing works. It’s said that once Kudzu has taken root, the best remedy is a herd of goats to contain its growth. Not unlike my clients—addicted to my lash. Once experienced, they always come back, bleating for more.
Whether it’s mid-August or mid-winter, late summer is always in bloom under my hand. Won’t you come and experience the southern heat of an August lightning strike?
