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Category: shade

Way Stations

Way Stations

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The cicadas are buzzing and the air has thickened. Summer is at its sultry best. I don’t mind the heat, but I do appreciate a bit of shade when it presents itself. 

I’m lucky to live in a neighborhood with strategically placed tree tunnels. I walked through them this morning and noticed how their cooler air refreshed my step. 

These shady spots are way stations for the summer walker, stretches of pavement to aim for and enjoy. I don’t completely pause while in them — but I do slow down. 

Summer Shade

Summer Shade

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Accompanying me on yesterday’s walk was my old friend, shade. There’s always a point in the spring when I notice it’s back. It builds gradually, of course, leaf by leaf. But yesterday it announced itself in sharp lines, patches of light and dark, stripes made of shadow.

We don’t yet need the coolness shade gives us, but we can always use the contrast, one of the great, unappreciated gifts of life. It gives us depth and richness. It gives us variety.

Winter gives us shadows, but they are harsh and linear. Summer brings contrast with softer contours, smudged margins. And it brings us more of it. Summer weather is not yet with us, but summer shade is starting to be.

Natural Cool

Natural Cool

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We leapt from a rainy June to a sizzling July, and are now measuring the heat index instead of the precipitation.  On my slow walks this weekend I sought the relative cool of the shady stretches that line Folkstone Drive.

Is there any cool better than natural cool? I know what the air conditioning devotees will say. Of course there is. It’s the cranked-down chill of a 72-degree office or living room. And don’t get me wrong. On days when the mercury climbs toward 100, it’s mighty nice to step inside a well-chilled house.

But there is also something to be said for the deep woods, for ferns waving in a slight breeze, for soil that is still a bit moist from last month’s downpours, for a creek gurgling in the distance.

For sections of road where tree branches lace overhead and spread their shade to the pavement below. For old houses with thick walls flanked by tall oaks.

There is something to be said for natural cool.

The Growth of Shade

The Growth of Shade

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As trees lean taller into themselves their leaves cling more certainly to each other. The sun, shut out, slides graciously away. What is left, of course, is shade. A thicket of darkness on the lea side of morning.

The growth of shade brings contentment, air cooled by absence of light. A shady street is anything but shady. It is proud, its houses shielded from the street and the glances of strangers. It is green and settled.

A neighborhood rich in shade is rich in so much else.

Shade Seeking

Shade Seeking

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I finished writing an article yesterday morning, which meant that I didn’t walk until noon. But I found a trail with only dappled sunlight and fast-walked there. No sun. No sunscreen. No visor.

The summertime world is all about light, from the earliest gray dawns to the latest pearl twilights. But I’m trying to walk less in full sun this year, to choose my path carefully so that — at least at high noon — there will be blessed shade.

This is counter to every sun-loving bone in my body. But it’s to preserve my body, well, most particularly my skin, that I’ve suddenly become a shade seeker.

I’m coming to appreciate the play of light on tree trunks, the wagging of oak leaves high in the canopy, the trails that wind along the stream. There are animals, plants — even ideas — more visible in the shadows than anywhere else.

Cool Shade

Cool Shade

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It’s chilly outside this morning, but one thing about the day makes me think about the sticky summer weather to come. It is shade, the deep green depths of it, the way it cools and soothes. I grew up in a shadeless subdivision, playing in meadows and along creek banks for hours each day under a full and merciless sun. The two trees in our front yard were saplings I was dying to climb. By the time they were large enough, we’d outgrown the house and moved away. Maybe it’s this early shade deprivation that explains my attraction for cool, dappled glades; for fern and hollow; for the quiet, naturally air-conditioned woods. Each spring we extol the return of flower and leaf. Shouldn’t we also celebrate the return of shade?