Summer Day Musings
Now I sit on the porch with my ceiling fan on. The weather is quite warm, 90°F, but the humidity is quite low. That makes it pleasant, with the gentle breeze and the birds happily twittering away.
A short while ago, a mother and grandmother companionably walked by together as the mother pushed a baby happily babbling in his stroller. He is attempting to speak. Every once in a while, they stopped. They bent over the stroller and gazed at him with delight as if not believing the miracle of him!
A young couple just passed by. He was on a bicycle, she was walking. They had obviously had a tiff. He kept circling back and forth trying to talk to her. “Leave me alone!” she repeatedly exclaimed, not too convincingly. “Da! Da!” “Yes, yes!” in Russian, he kept repeating over and over again, trying to pacify her. I guess they finally made it up for all became quiet as they walked away.
A young lady with a loud voice and a swinging ponytail speaks in Italian on her cell phone, her arm waving about excitedly, leaning against our fence. Our neighborhood is quite international. Russian, Italian, Israeli, Chinese—I hear all these languages as people pass by.
I walk back into the kitchen to top off my cup of tea. Kelly had come in with my weekly shopping and placed it on the counter and left. I did not hear the dogs, nor his fiancée. I felt disappointed that he crept away without saying hello. I called his cell and asked him the reason. “It was too quiet,” he replied. Of course, it is quiet! Who am I to talk to? Myself?
Yes, it is going to be a quiet day. I look across the table and imagine Peter contentedly snoozing on the chair opposite me, his legs stretched out in front of him. His hands are on his stomach. His face in sleep always had a look of serenity upon it. The birds sang him a lullaby and the breeze rustled through the leaves in the trees to soothe him. A butterfly lazily flits from one flower to another, daintily sipping at their nectar. I get up and walk to the kitchen for another cup of tea. I return and sip my tea as I write. I imagine him to still be here, for in my mind he still is. I pick up my book and read.