Enter summer

I'd forgotten what it was like for summer to smell like warm honeysuckle and damp lilacs. When rain makes the weeds easier to pull. Where picnics can be an all-day affair or something you pop out and have at lunch break. 

What riches, to be able to bike to work in the morning and trim rose-bushes in the evening. Weekends might even bring a spin on the lake, or a trip further into the country to see cows and corn and cottonwood trees.

Over the last week or so, the potent sun and wind have dried out my gardens, and weeds have taken over. Not every day comes with enough energy to tackle a jungle in the heat, after a long shift on your feet, but I was able to water tonight. 

Some evenings I slip out for a sunset walk, or an hour on the balcony. A few mornings have seen a bit of yoga before work, a few afternoons, a lay out in the sun. In the evenings I try to take a while to sit listening to jazz in my lounge. Sipping wine or chamomile tea, or in my silk kimono, or dancing alone to soft melodies.

I still paint walls, and hang art (an extreme sport, as the only thing that will chew through my 80-year-old plaster walls, is a concrete bit). I've bought a printer, and a blender. And tried my hand at Pho. 

Sometimes it's the oddest things that bring that feeling of comfort or contentment, the feeling that yes indeed, this is the place I'm meant to be in this moment: eating overdone chocolate chip cookies with cheap black coffee on a work-break; or papering basement walls with the New York Times on a late night whim.

Who knows what lies ahead, but I'm breathing in the beauty these days. Remembering to nap, and breathe, and move. To embrace the imperfect tumble with a gladness that is pure gift.