Today is amazing. Everything about the morning is beautiful. The sunlight is dramatic. It shines in and around everything. The sky is dark blue. It is 65° with a strong breeze. I even had to shut the window behind me. The dogs were joyful. They romped with wild abandonment through the backyard. Nala circled the yard over and over. I wished I could have joined them.

I have a list for today. I need a few groceries to tide me over for the weekend. I also want to buy the rest of the plants for the deck, for the clay pots. I have a concert this afternoon, Songs Across America is our current book. It will be a busy day.

For July 4th my father sometimes bought us punks. We’d twirl them around as if they were fireworks. We’d blow on the ends to brighten the embers, and we used them to light sparklers. I loved the sparklers. They spurted beautiful white sparks. They were fireworks in my hand.

One year my mother left up her Christmas tree. It was in a corner in her living room, and she lit it every night and decorated it for every holiday. For July 4th it had flags and streamers and red, white and blue garlands. It was festively patriotic.

When I was a kid, we went to the July 4th parade in Wakefield, the next town over. It was a wonderful parade with floats and bands and drum and bugle corps and drill teams. We watched the parade from on the porch of my father’s friend’s house. It was a huge event. I remember the food. The kitchen counters and kitchen table groaned under the weight of all the food, and barbecues in the backyard were always cooking hot dogs and burgers. When I was older, I marched in that parade. I was in St. Pat’s drill team. I both dreaded and looked forward to passing that house still filled with people on the porch, including my parents. They cheered when we walked by, and they called my name, prompted by my father. I sneaked a wave.

I have a concert this July 4th. I also have a few punks and some sparklers. I’ll decorate the front fence with flags and banners. I’ll cook a couple of hot dogs for myself. I’ll have a banner 4th.

The sound of rain woke me up. I listened for a short while then went back to sleep. The rain has since stopped, but the morning is damp, chilly. Everything is soaked.

Yesterday I finished planting the flowers I had bought. The deck now has 4 clay pots, 2 decorative pots and 8 over the rail flower boxes filled with herbs and flowers. I still need more flowers for the big clay pots I put on the deck trail. That’s for tomorrow. I cleaned out the metal trash can where I kept the seeds for the feeders. I haven’t hung the feeders since last year because the small branches where they had hung are gone, broken off, so I‘ll have to be creative. I do have a couple of ideas.

When I was a kid, we sometimes went to Boston for the day. We’d spend time on the Boston Common. I remember riding the Swan Boats. The boats are propelled by pedals, foot power, so the ride is quiet. I could hear birds. I watched swans gracefully swimming in the lagoon. I remember sitting on one of the benches near flower beds and having squirrels, aka the spawns of Satan, all round me begging for the peanuts my father had bought. They’d stand on their hind legs, paws out. I thought it was amazing they were so close. I was young. The Swan Boats haven’t changed in close to 150 years, neither have the squirrels.

The Peace Corps had Land Rovers, the sort that used to cross the Sahara in caravans of vehicles instead of camels. To me they meant adventures in out of the way places. I remember my first ride in a Range Rover. It was at the end of our mid-year conference. We had stayed at a hotel with cabins right on the ocean and down the coast from Accra. When one of the Peace Corps staff was going back to Accra, he offered to drive a few of us with him. I leaped at the chance. I was in a Land Rover in Africa. I could’ve been on a page of National Geographic.