It is July 29. The pool is naturally 96 degrees and last night's sky was painted sky blue, streaked with cobalt, azure, arctic, and dabbed with cerulean and lapis blue. It was magnificent.
This morning the wind whispers, interrupted by an occasional soft roar. The big pine in my neighbor's yard, in a wind tunnel, moves like a honeybee's wiggle dance. The trees below me look like soft coral flowing in the current. The same blues light the sky, though on the horizon there is light purple, and throughout the sky, soft and dark grays weave in between the ghosts flying across.
My daughter is sick. She reports that she is doing everything to get well--food as medicine, medicine, but what finally makes the difference is taking her shoes off and walking on the grass in her backyard; sitting down and watching the hummingbirds dash about the feeder; surrendering to the peace and the oft resisted, do-nothing comfort.
Because it is July 29, it is a wake up call--to summer. We are two-thirds of the way through the season that invites us outside without a coat or a jacket, without a chill. Summer is its own jacket, its own blanket of warmth. An atmospheric bubble of comfort.
I will take warmth over cold. I will take outside over inside. I will ride my bike over driving the car. I will eat outside over inside. I will take the beating sun on my shoulders over the air-conditioning blowing on my back. And one of these nights while it's still warm, I will sleep outside on the deck.
I'm no mountain man or avid camper--just a woman who loves to be outside.
A woman who knows the warmth is a bullet train speeding by.
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