I’m a sun-lover for sure, but when summer arrives I become a shade connoisseur. There is the deep shade of an old oak, generous and all-encompassing. There is the dappled shade of a new-growth forest, light patches like beacons in the darkness.

When walking in the city, I seek the shady side of the street, only slightly cooler than its opposite, but when temperatures soar, every degree counts.

In our backyard, the shade that was once a given is no longer. The black gum tree has failed to leaf. Though its trunk still stands sentinel, its shade is gone — and soon it will be, too.

Which underlines the fact that shade is a gift, nature’s balm for summer heat.

(In London’s Greenwich Park, some seek the sunlight, others the shade.)