(re-post)
I'd forgotten across a year of seasons how seductive summer can be.
I'd forgotten how one pulls across the curtains and adjusts the blinds (and joy is taken in that ancient quilt curtain and that wooden vertical slat blind that lets moonlight in slanting down but keeps sunlight out slanting up) on the east side of the house as the hot morning sun pours in and then, once the sun is higher in the sky, the curtain and blind are opened and the cool breeze flows through.
I'd forgotten how compelling of presence a summer garden is and I wonder, given such weather year round, would I ever go indoors.
The sheets and towels, pegged up on the clothesline, demonstrate graphically the "blinding white" description and I squint as I hang them. White snow in sunlight does that as well. The thought of winter is not chilling in summer sun.
For some reason I hang the sheets in single file today and they drag a bit on the grass. Memory snaps its fingers and I look around for a clothesline pole of the supporting sort. A bamboo pole, waiting on the scarlet runner beans to need further elevating but so far vacant, is called into use and pushed up under the clothesline. The weight of the clothes on the line is pressure enough to support the pole upright and it sways back and forth in the wind, the sheets free of earth contact and getting on with the business of uninhibited drying.
I'd forgotten how hanging wet clothing in hot sun brings about immediate evaporation and the feeling of coolness from the laundry.
There are things to be done inside, I know there are, there must be, but I am not drawn to dwell on them at the moment. A chair under the plum tree needs attention and gets it fully. The brown/black/amber/cream cat stretches out by my feet and raises its head to my dangling fingers; the fingers find the ear nubs where I know she likes to be scratched.
The sound of the hummingbird draws my gaze upward and I watch her at the feeder like someone pecking and hunting at a keyboard; the erratic behavior makes me wonder if the nectar is too warm, it is in full sun. That thought - to put in fresh nectar - gets me moving from the chair with the intent of going directly indoors.
But on the way in I notice that the single nasturtium plant is being crowded by other things (oh, okay - most people would call those weeds) and I give it space. Then, more of the bindweed gets persuaded away from its involvement with the raspberries and the iris. Some raspberries get eaten. I'd forgotten how one gets past the notion that there is a problem with eating garden produce with dirt-covered fingers.
Funny, how on the forgetting, comes the remembering.
Posted on July 05, 2007 at 06:31 AM | Permalink
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