Summer

The time of year about which I meant to write is already over - those few weeks in Florida when the temperature outside is 70 degrees and everything is surrounded by a glow of perfection. I go around saying to myself, "This is why people live here." Now we're in the sweaty season, which will last half the year. The temperature was up to 85 starting last week, and I just stayed inside, for plenty of reasons - the baby needs to eat, I need to do the dishes. But two weeks ago, I would have spread a blanket in the shade of the ligustrum and fed the baby in his Bumbo Seat. Then I would have given him a twig or a few leaves to play with and laid back and looked at the sky while the girls chased each other round and round on the trampoline, the breeze languidly lifting the tendrils of my hair. The weather was so gracious, this could have occupied us for an hour or even two. At our old house, this idyll was called "Hammock Time” and was spent swinging between two mighty oaks in the backyard. Now the tendrils of my hair are plastered to the sides of my face with perspiration. It’s “Pool Time.” Happily, we have one, even though we had to trade in our hammock for it last year when we moved. Floridians hibernate around now. At least having a pool gives us a reason to go outside. I guess I will. All things come to an end. I walk out the door into a wall of heat. It lies on my skin like a weighted blanket hot and damp from the dryer. To tell the truth, it doesn’t really feel that bad, at first. I’m catching little hints, too, on the air of a delightful fragrance. Such sweetness! I breathe it and breathe it. Where is it coming from?  Oh yes, the ligustrum is blooming. It always surprises me.  What a sweet perfume can come from such unobtrusive little white flowers. 

Girls, get your suits on. 

(2011)