I’m remembering a warm evening last summer—in my mind’s eye, I’m driving in the waning light, the day growing dusky and golden, the air soft and humid as the temperature slowly drops. My windows are down and I have the music on loud. The National’s “Bloodbuzz Ohio” is playing and I’m half singing, half humming along to the words. Lay my head on the hood of your car…I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees.
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The hydrangeas are blooming. Yesterday I walked over to the garden and spotted two small zucchini nestled just beneath the bright tangerine-colored blossoms, and one row over, three snap peas jauntily hanging from the vines, their delicate tendrils snaking up the metal trellis. Arugula is coming along nicely, as are various lettuces and a hardy species of blue-green kale. At the far edge of the garden is my favorite plant: a small round bush of basil with broad leaves and pretty purple flowers that grow straight up in whirled cylinders. It’s not regular basil, the sort that you’re used to tasting in tomato sauce and lasagna and piled on top of pizza.
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Seed catalogs read like good novels—I could spend hours poring over the pages, envisioning the splendor to spring forth from each. The names read like luscious dishes on a restaurant menu, or characters in a Gone With the Wind-era romance: Lemon Drop zucchini and Green Knight eggplant and Kandy Korn pumpkin and Cherry Belle radishes.
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Summer announced itself today in the form of hot, humid, heavy air that greeted me as I pushed open the front door with my bike at 8 AM. Although it’s gotten warm, the mornings have still retained a cool freshness that I associate with spring. But today heralds the arrival of summer weather in earnest: the kind of heat that allows for a t-shirt and shorts even at night. The kind that makes you want a cherry-lime popsicle and the smell of hot asphalt and the juice of a ripe peach on your fingers.
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The chorus of birdsong starts up every morning around 5 AM. It’s loud enough to wake me up until I close the window and, yawning, fall back to sleep. The backyard is becoming more lush with every passing day—purple day lilies bloom beside the raised beds and a climbing bush with flowers the delicate blush pink of the inside of a seashell has taken over the back corner of the fence. The smell of fresh mint (which grows rampant among the flower beds) and just-cut grass hangs in the air. Bright green hydrangea bushes are poised for their moment, the buds tightly curled still like tiny closed fists. But I know what splendor lies within—violent bursts of color that erupt suddenly in late June like fireworks.
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