Summertime Dreaming

May 15, 2012

Hello, Readers, and happy May to you. Late one recent evening, I laid in bed with the window open wide and inhaled the familiar, indefinable scent that one instantly recognizes as belonging solely to summer. A warm breeze brushed my face, and insects buzzed and bumped the screen. I breathed deeply and slowly. The trees made their gentle rustling noises, and a car rolled past, spilling a trickle of music and gas fumes as it went. A dog made its opinions known from the next block over, and as I lay listening and smelling, I began to remember bits and pieces of scenes from past summer: the slapping sound of water and the sun’s reflection on a blazing afternoon at the swimming pool… a perilous but exhilarating late-night motorcycle ride in the country…hiking on a mountainside with my family...watching a fireworks display with my boys when they were small…a first kiss…watching (and smelling) the monkeys at the zoo…and as the scenes rolled through my head I noticed that, interspersed with events I had experienced firsthand I was also remembering: meeting Mr. Darcy at the neighborhood dance…heading into Utah with Mark Twain…racing toward the Cornucopia to grab supplies with Katniss…riding through the British countryside in Bertie Wooster’s two-seater…returning to my childhood home in the Ozarks with the three sisters from The Moonflower Vine…

And I drifted off to sleep, to dream of the experiences this summer might bring.

Liz P.
Lone Jack Branch