June's Skirts Have Rustled 'Cross the Meadow
June 29, 2014
I am in love with my home and my travels. I am equally blessed with both.
Friday's drive back to the office is a delight as I zip along the parkway that snakes between verdant banks of trees, tracing the river that lends its name. Each switch of the road reveals a panorama as luscious as a Thomas Cole, with a sky deep and clear and towering heaps of cumulus clouds floating merrily above. Back in the office, it is a little easier to hunker down under the flourescent lights, bouyant with the promise of Friday evening within arm's reach.
Birdsong begins at 4:10 these mornings and I am grateful that the dogs ignore it and slumber on. I often cannot do the same, and world outside begins to turn pink, my mind goes on full alert and the day's events begins to tumble through my mind until I am seized with the need to jump up. I resist, though, knowing the second my bare feet touch the floor, the dogs will awake, ready for breakfast, business, and walks and I will have no quiet time on the porch with a cup of coffee and a sketchbook.
And, truth be told, arising at 4:00 will guarantee a sloggy head all day and crashing into bed by 9:00, which will make me miss the most romantic part of the evening. When darkness falls and the windows in our neighbors' houses shine out on the street, I love to lie in bed and watch the lamplight filter through the lacy, delicate leaves of the birches outside the bedroom windows. The street looks like a Monopoly board with all the houses lined up just so, little cars parked outside, windows lit up, and the hundred year old trees rustling in the breezes.
It reminds me of being a kid again in bed in our childhood home, in my tiny, narrow room, in bed before my older sisters, listening to the house settle down with my face pressed up against the metal window screen, trying to catch a glimpse of someone walking by. I fall asleep hearing in my mind my parents playing Scrabble on the porch and feeling the cool cotton pillowcase beneath my cheek
Today is a luxuriously empty catch-up Sunday. Yesterday was the last event in a string of pearls as we celebrated the graduation from high school and college of my baby sister's two daughters. It was a lovely night: light until after nine, just cool enough to reach for a scarf, with good food and family. After we came home, we were all readon the porch until at some point, the three of us were asleep under the fairy lights.
I wish you a Sunday afternoon along a river, hamper of cold chicken and bottle of rosé by your side, a book of poetry in hand, a pillow 'neath your head, and the heady scent of June lingering for one last Sunday noon.