Summer, at last, at long last. I am so happy.
Sitting on the porch after dark in a tank top. Welcoming a breeze instead of shivering in it. Seeing the summer birds come back, the painted bunting and the hummingbirds.
Floating around lazy curves of the creek watching huge clouds drift the other way in a sky so blue I can't believe it.
And best of all swimming in the ocean. I don't do it until the water gets to about 80F, and the air maybe a few better than that. Even so, the first few times I inch in, with a line of cold around my body where the water's hitting for the first time, but my feet and legs already happy, telling the rest of me to come on in. The little water running over my ankles, the first splashes up to my knees. A breaker foaming around my waist. And finally a big green curve over my head--no more choice, dive in or jump high, but my head goes in. And then I can't make myself come out. I'm riding the waves in, I'm diving under, I'm floating over, and in between lying on the water that holds me like a friend I'm laughing with, laughing so hard I can't stand up.
And wading back through the warm marsh, showering under the trees, drying my hair in the breeze while I rock on the porch.
It seems that all the rest of the year I'm only partly living. This is real.
Sitting on the porch after dark in a tank top. Welcoming a breeze instead of shivering in it. Seeing the summer birds come back, the painted bunting and the hummingbirds.
Floating around lazy curves of the creek watching huge clouds drift the other way in a sky so blue I can't believe it.
And best of all swimming in the ocean. I don't do it until the water gets to about 80F, and the air maybe a few better than that. Even so, the first few times I inch in, with a line of cold around my body where the water's hitting for the first time, but my feet and legs already happy, telling the rest of me to come on in. The little water running over my ankles, the first splashes up to my knees. A breaker foaming around my waist. And finally a big green curve over my head--no more choice, dive in or jump high, but my head goes in. And then I can't make myself come out. I'm riding the waves in, I'm diving under, I'm floating over, and in between lying on the water that holds me like a friend I'm laughing with, laughing so hard I can't stand up.
And wading back through the warm marsh, showering under the trees, drying my hair in the breeze while I rock on the porch.
It seems that all the rest of the year I'm only partly living. This is real.