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Category: summer

Deck Post

Deck Post

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It’s the first post of the season that I’m writing on the deck before leaving for work. It’s warm enough to sit out here in shirtsleeves, a delicious reversal from months of chilly mornings.

The windows were open so I woke this morning to the slap of the newspaper on the driveway. An almost full moon was setting as I left the house.

It’s a different kind of day when I have a chance to walk before work — more expansive, softer around the edges, routine on the run.

So even though I should be leaving now, I take another sip of tea, linger a little longer with the birdsong and the faraway traffic noise. In a moment I’ll get up, shoulder my bag, leave the house, drive to Metro.

But not yet.

Summer, Still

Summer, Still

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These are the bonus days of summer. Every warm afternoon, every sliver moon peeping through the trees as it rises in the sultry August sky. Every thin crescent moon that sees us through till morning.

Summer has been hot this year, and I haven’t minded. It’s warmed my bones, and if it keeps warming them a few more weeks, I won’t complain.

It hasn’t been the most relaxing summer. Creating a backyard wedding venue has taken care of that. But it has been rich in people and in feeling and will not be easily forgotten.

The day lilies are drooping now, the cone flowers are fading. There are a dozen mum plants cooling their heels in the house. They’ll be planted when the temperature dips below 90.

Until then, until next Tuesday for sure, it is still gloriously, indisputably … summer.

Triple Digit

Triple Digit

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After three triple-digit temperature days in a row (that’s real temperature, not heat index, which was more like 110), we’re having a cold snap today (“only” 95).

I know I should hate it, should be hunkering down indoors with a cool drink and the AC ratcheted to 72, but it’s summer, after all, and I think about how cold our winters have been lately and how really, truly, sweatily alive I feel when pulling weeds in a buggy backyard with the sun beating down on my back.

Weird, to be true, but something I dream about when the cold winds blow. Which they will … soon enough.

(What’s blowing these grasses isn’t a cold wind but a hot breeze.)

Happy Jeweleye

Happy Jeweleye

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A jewel of a day to many would be one with pleasant temps and low humidity, a puffy-cloud, blue-sky day. Today is not like that. It is muggy and hot. The insects are singing their fevered chorus and the birds are chirping listlessly in the background.

But to me it’s a jewel of a July day. Perfect in its very July-ness. Yes, there are heat warnings. But this is summer: It’s supposed to be hot.  And yes, we move more slowly now, but isn’t that one of summer’s great gifts, that it’s andante instead of allegro?

So here’s to summer, to the heat and humidity, even the torpor. Happy Jeweleye!

A Summer in Moments

A Summer in Moments

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This morning I caught a glimpse of two birds in flight. It was impossible to know their type, only that they were silvered on the wing and had a radiance most possible when the sun is low in the sky.

Here we are in high summer, a summer of discontent and national tragedies, a summer when it’s easy to feel befuddled and confused. There’s hardly time to absorb one reality before another asserts itself.

For me, summer has always been a time of healing. It must go back to long-ago school vacations. Summer was a time when we could get back to ourselves. Long books, late nights, deep pools — of water and of thought.

Now summer is over in the blink of an eye. It must exist in moments. Biting into the season’s first peach. Feeling warm sand between the toes. Watching late light slant through the poplars. Or seeing two birds in flight, with silver on their wings.

Savoring the Summer

Savoring the Summer

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I join the morning as it moves slowly over the drowsy
suburbs of Washington. I see it clamber up a bank of clouds and shimmer as violet curtains part to make way for the sun. The sunrise is so vivid that it colors even the dark leaves of the shaded maples.

I walk without earphones, listening instead to the avian chorus. Those birds; they always know what to do, rising early to claim the day.
It was still dusk when I left the house. Bats darted through the air, foraging for last-minute snacks. A slow-moving skunk lumbered across the road. Squirrels scampered up trees, chattering to their own.

Last night’s walk took me from daylight to darkness; today’s
from darkness to daylight. I think about how lucky I am to see one day out and another day in,
to savor the summer in its passage.
Out There

Out There

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A light rain this morning, almost welcome after some hot dry windy days. It’s so still that even the birds are hushed. The deck is mottled, not soaked as much as dampened.

We are past the middle of June, the solstice almost upon us, and I’m still snatching summer in dribbles and drabs. Here a 20-minute walk, there a 20-minute bounce, dining al fresco on the deck.
I’ve found a spot in the office where I can stand and look out the window almost unobserved. I go there when writing headlines or doing other creative work. My eyes stray from the page to the trees blowing green and the clouds puffy white. 

There’s the summer! Right there, just beyond my grasp. One of these days I’ll catch up with it.
Cicadas in the City

Cicadas in the City

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Out the door and down New Jersey Avenue. The familiar arching trees shade the hotel and taxi stand. The Capitol lies ahead; its scaffolding gleams in the noonday sun.

I run for every light, avoid the waits, move as much as possible. It’s the pace that does it, I think — a steady cadence does much to loosen the joints and free up the mind. But scenery helps also, and yesterday’s was perfect. Blue skies, cicadas still singing, all the bustle of early September.

For many years I mourned New York City. Washington, D.C., could never measure up in quirkiness or energy or street life. But in the last several years I’ve mellowed to D.C. I appreciate the cicadas, for instance, and the tall trees that shelter them. Their crescendo is the sound of hot southern cities, a sound that says slow down. No one heeds it, of course, but at least it’s there, mixed in with car horns and sirens.

Just Sitting

Just Sitting

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Who was it that said, “Sometimes I sit and think — and sometimes I just sit”?

This is a “just sitting” kind of morning. Which is too bad since I have lots of work to do. But for a few minutes “just sitting” is what I plan to do.

The cicadas are in high-summer mode. Their sounds ripple through the air, the aural equivalent of a dip in the pool or a Popsicle dripping down the arm on a sticky afternoon.

The morning air is cool and full of promise. I want to bottle it for a stripped-bare winter day. I want to store up inside, which is the only place that counts.

But for now … I want to just sit.

Summer Day

Summer Day

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Yesterday was the perfect summer day. I thought this even on the way to the dentist, and if you notice it then, the impression must be valid.

The air was weighty and warm and filled with the sound of cicadas. There was no rain (this was key). And the morning held the promise of just enough heat.

In late afternoon, when I was walking Copper in the woods, a couple of big frogs were bellowing from the creek. They plopped in the water as we walked by. The katydids were chirping slowly, as if they could barely be roused from their dreamy, midsummer naps.

Spiders had been busy and webs were strung between the trees like tiny Buddhist prayer flag ropes. When they caught a leaf it waved cheerily in the breeze.