Not winter, when our private bodies live cozy in our coats, our naked faces exposed
to the starry sky and snap of wind, but the season when air is like the body, the
temperature of perfect bathwater, a mosquito cloud rising eagerly to take aim at
my feet as I water the plants at dusk, heated molecules rising up to rest lightly
on my forearms, summer neck and bare shoulders, the desire to lie on top of the
blanket with the sheet folded back, the craving for ceiling fans. The season when
I don’t mind a little
corn silk between my teeth and will stand in front of the open fridge eating
blueberries in my underwear, the pure delight of fresh summer tomatoes on plain
white bread with mayonnaise, obscenely juicy peaches eaten over the sink, the
planting of lavender and basil, thyme and mint, geraniums and petunias and lantana,
a lemony citronella plant that might ward off the biting insects and make sitting
on the porch swing possible. The season when the new flyswatter is named Swift Swat
with instructions in three languages, and
my son Eli and his friend burst into the house, bringing with them gentle waves of
boy stink, and rush to stand inches from the air conditioner, eyes closed, hair
blown back, with the same ecstatic expression as the prize winning llama I once
saw standing regally in the sweltering livestock barn at the Texas State Fair, its
languid face as close to the humming breeze of the stick fan as it could get. The
season when sweat,
the creeping perspiration that begins in May and ends sometime in late September,
turns from a light glaze to something far damper as I mow the lawn, little bursts
of insects and grass foam shooting up in front of me; dust swirls like the miniature
tumbleweeds that bloom in Texas, rolling down the main streets of exhausted little
towns baking under the relentless sun, the sun in a sky bigger than a planet, a sky
that is its own gigantic galaxy of heat and light and sunsets burning holes in your
eyes, a state with no gentleness, driving through towns named Turkey and Wisdom and
Canyon, the daily sunsets painting their way over the horizon, slashes of violent
purple, orange, red. The season of my childhood magnolia tree,
with its boat-shaped waxy leaves and creamy sweet smelling flowers, the star of our
front yard, edging out the old-lady crape myrtles with their papery blossoms, and the
saloon girl of a camellia bush with its soft, red, overblown blooms, our majestic
magnolia dominated in scale and scent, a woman of substance and adventure, a windy
night, an open boat, a hat like a sail. The season of gin and tonics, the one
cocktail
taught me by my father—first the gin, then 1/4 of a lime, squeezed then
dropped, into the glass, followed by tonic, then ice cubes—and the memory of
a magical G&T drunk overseas, concocted by a sexy Italian mixologist at a
botanical cocktail popup in the center of London’s Kew Gardens, the narrow
frosted tumbler, the thin slice of cucumber garnish, we sipped blissfully at a tiny
table and a small British child in rain boots tiptoed across the landscape, stalking
a peacock. The season when
Drew, the ten-year-old neighbor boy crosses the street to stare adoringly at me,
the one adult who will always listen, before plunging into an endless story that
always begins “One time....” then rambling through his adventures over
hill and dale and parking lot, a bicycle careening through myriad cul de sacs, the
chairs he thought were strong enough to leap off of, and the trees that got in the way,
resulting, inevitably, in some sort of bodily harm, which he lifts a pant leg or
rolls up a sleeve to proudly present for my appraisal. The season I always spent in
Charlottesville
between college semesters, working university catering jobs in black polyester
uniforms called “Fifis” and “Pierres” with the cool kids who
introduced me to Talking Heads, listening to the daily thunderstorms that rolled in,
leaving the town in a stifling haze of humidity shimmering up from the sidewalks
until the next storm rolled in to take its place, buying my first cookbook, hearing
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue for the first time, losing my virginity
while Simon and Garfunkel played on the boom box, seeing through far younger, less
seasoned eyes.
is a writer who lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where she is still trying to learn
how to juggle. Her nonfiction appears in The Lascaux Review.
