Summer

I usually am the first to complain about summers in the South. Too hot. Far too hot. Take last summer, for instance. For over a month the temperatures posted 95°+ without relent. No rain, just the unforgiving, driving heat. Not to mention that on the hottest day, 104°, my A/C was busted because I hadn't been changing the filters. (It takes me a while, but given the proper provocation, even I learn my lesson.)

This summer, however, has been milder and even though I begin sweating the moment I step outdoors (because I'm huge), I've enjoyed it quite a bit. I've enjoyed being outside swinging the boys. I've enjoyed tracking the progress of this year's argiope. I've really enjoyed it. It's hot. It's quiet. It's real. Outside is the opposite of abstraction - where the old table from a long-ago-disappeared Ponderosa restaurant is nearly rotted through. Where ants crawl across my writing page and pill bugs nest under my garden gloves. The mimosa is straining to make it through the month, and all that's left of the argiope, that happy yellow beast that sat with me in my solitude, is an egg sac attached under the overhang of my wooden carport, attached next to the holes drilled with the unnatural precision of carpenter bees. I'm anticipating the spider lilies. But while I wait, I'll be content with hydrangea, lyriope, and crepe myrtles. I do wish the argiope hadn't left so soon. I enjoyed her company.