Glimpse of Summer

☀️🏡🌸🐢🎣🦆

After yoga, I take a walk through the park and nearby neighborhood, listening to Ann Patchett’s collection of essays, These Precious Days, apt title for my life right now, my morning, this moment. I pass a house with such a vibrant garden of colorful blooms it rivals beds at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. I don’t stop, don’t take a picture, but I stroll through the perfume of the blossoms.

A few houses down, a vine with purple cone-shaped flowers twines around a decorative lamppost in a front yard. As I go by, one long tendril of vine reaches out—literally lifts and reaches away from the post. I slow and peer. Is it the wind? I don’t feel a breeze. Is there a hummingbird or squirrel playing a trick? I don’t see one. I continue walking, leaving the mystery of the reaching vine unsolved.

I turn right and cross my favorite bridge overlooking a pond bordered by the picturesque backyards of big, beautiful houses. I pause to look over at the turtles—some of them impressively large—floating below, then keep going. Soon I cross paths with two boys carrying fishing poles.

On the next block, I hit my mile and turn around. When I return to the bridge, the boys are there, fishing lines draped over the concrete wall. Cottonwood pollen fills the air, drifting down on street and poles and creek and the blond heads of two boys on a summer adventure. I walk on the other side this time, looking over at the part past the dam where the water now trickles in a shallow creek. Two ducks sit side-by-side beneath me.

It is hot out even though it’s early. I must have cut a corner somewhere because I get back to my car just shy of my two miles. I consider circling the parking lot a time or two but opt for air conditioning instead. I am done walking.

I did not take a picture, did not stop to record notes. This precious day will have to rely on my memory and my words to keep it fresh.