A Summer's Eve

I've never quite been a summer girl, but there is something about this time of year that gets my heart going.

How I adore my yard when it is in full bloom. Though I wish I could say some of its splendor is my doing, it is all my mom's handiwork. Still, I do contain a bursting feeling of pride and possessiveness over it as I walk amidst its glory. There is the huge rosebush that sweeps over our back porch and captures it like a disease come springtime. Then, as summer comes, a thick crop of rosebuds begins to light it up with color like candles over a dark room. I love the pleasure that runs through me when I step outside and smell the brilliance of the roses in the afternoon.

There are thousands of flowers. Rhubarb with leaves bigger than trees. Our backyard maple, front yard oak and red bud and mountain ash. Swarms of bees feasting on the flowers, butterflies that come to visit, and worms burrowing in the dark, healthy dirt. My mom's herb garden grows daintily. When the raspberries start to come, bucket after bucket are filled after each picking.

I bike, too. There's nothing quite like riding free, wind rushing through my hair and over my neck. It's almost what I would imagine riding a horse bareback would be like. Feeling close to the wild earth.

What I love more than anything, though, is when dusk comes. I slip outside and stand on the porch. I just stand and soak it all in. The sky, the air in my lungs, the tree silhouettes, and the crickets. I stand and feel the wind on my face. The sky swallows me in its vastness. . . and that is the time when my worries wash away.

If anything makes me feel beautiful, it is the dusk and the wind.
I feel the presence of God nearing, and I am changed.

Tonight, I went outside and flattened down on the ground and watched some ants. I felt a familiar childlike wonder creep into my gaze. It has been so long since I've done something like that: just lied down to look at the details. I'm finding that, these days, I have to intentionally choose to simply savor moments.

Well, here's to the future,
where I hope I will once again be able to find beauty in the little things. I'm going to relearn to look for the small things, like veins in the flowers. It's time to breathe deeply, slow down, and open my eyes wide again.

My dog, Jasmine, enjoying the world.