The day begins with promise, as most summer days do. The sun is already high overhead when I make my way out of the dim, cool recesses of the house and open the door to the backyard patio. Watchful of the robins who have made a nest in the nearby weeping cherry (and their brood of three squeaking babies), I pull out a lawn chair and position it beneath the sun. It seems such a silly thing to do – to just lie there in the heat – but there are sensual pleasures to be found in the stillness and the quiet. Besides, Tom Ford once said that tan lines are sexy, and if anyone knows sexy, it’s him. And so I work on my tan, book in hand, squinting at the pages in the bright unrelenting sun.
The day passes. In between dips in the pool, I water the garden. The robins hem and haw a bit, but they have not resorted to air attacks just yet, and I’m hopeful we may have reached a truce in this uneasy cohabitation in the backyard. A hawk circles high overhead, and I eye the cherry tree, wondering if the little ones will be safe. No one is safe in this world, not even in the summer.
Slowly making its arc in the sky, the sun shifts and settles low in the West. It’s almost time for dinner, and errands. One last lap in the water, and then I must retreat inside. It’s been a beautiful day, and the only thing better than a sunny summer day, is a super-moony summer night.
