The weather is perfect. It is 79° and sunny, but the breeze is strong and cooling. The leaves seem to dance, a gyration, a spinning up and down. The nights have been perfect for sleeping, down to the 60’s. If I could control the weather, this is the day I’d make.

I have a black and white picture of me standing against a tree. I remember it was taken the summer we vacationed on Islesboro, Maine. We stayed in a secluded house close to the water. There was a short pier and a rowboat upside down on the sea grass. I was ten. The angle of the picture makes me look tall, exaggeratedly tall. I am wearing shorts, a blouse and a visor, a white visor. I wore that visor every day that summer. I loved it. I wore it everywhere, inside and outside, which is strange as I never really liked hats. Having to go to church was painful enough but having to wear a hat to go made it even worse. Perfect irony is I now have a hat collection, and I have several baseball type caps. I think of those caps as the ancestors of my visor.

I have seen so many wonders. When I was a kid, the wonders came every day. I remember walking to school and seeing small sheets of thin ice over puddles. Crystals shined from the ice. Sometimes I could see the reflection of the sun, blurred and small. In the winter, the dew froze on the grass. I loved the cracking sound when I walked across the lawn, across my father’s lawn. The colors of the trees in fall were amazing, red and yellow and orange. We ironed the leaves in wax paper to preserve the color. I’d cut the paper around the leaves to use as bookmarks. They were forever fall. The sidewalk on the way to school was overhung with branches. I remember the buds of the leaves at the start of spring sprouting from those branches. They were furled. I watched the buds grow into tiny leaves then get big enough to shadow the sidewalk. The murmuring of voices on summer nights carried from house to house. I’d sit on my back steps and listen. They sounded almost ethereal.

I have seen many wonders in my travels, but I expected to see them. It is the unexpected which still stops me to look, to hold and to wonder. Wow is all I can say when the sky at sunset is covered with reds, oranges and pinks. The colors seem to dazzle. Morning fog draws me to the deck. Birds singing to greet the day still makes me smile.

I am glad I still see the miracles of every day.

Yesterday it finally rained. Today it will rain again. The house is dark. Last night I lit all the white lights in the living room and the pepper and clam lights in the kitchen. I am comforted by the coziness the lights give the rooms.

I love the sound of rain, the way it pelts the windows and the roof. When I was a kid, on a rainy day, I’d lie in my bed, read and listen to the rain. It surrounded me. Out my window I could see the slant of the rain. If some drops came through my window, my mother always made me shut it. I did, reluctantly.

I had my uniform for every summer day. I wore a sleeveless blouse, shorts and sneakers. The sneakers were originally white. I’d dress in the morning, eat my cereal then spend all day exploring. I remember once we happened upon a small pond and a handmade wooden raft was beside it. We launched the raft and used a stick to pole it. One end of the raft was under the water so we all stood crowded at the other end. I was Huckleberry Finn rafting down the river. My sneakers got soaked, and I cut my hand on the stick pole, but I didn’t really mind. It was an adventure. I’d explore not only the familiar woods near my house but also the woods further on, foreign lands. Sometimes because of the heat and the distance, I’d get so exhausted I’d just fall into bed still wearing my clothes. My mother never objected. I did take off my sneakers.

Summer has such bounty. Sugar corn on the cob was my favorite. I’d slather the ear with butter and sprinkle on the salt. I used the typewriter technique to eat the corn, to go from row to row. I’d take a short breath and keep moving. I’d clear the cob with award worthy precision.

The traveling I have done has taught me to try new things. I eat local dishes. Some of them had ingredients I never imagined I’d eat. One was Guinea pigs in Ecuador. I ate the traditional dish at a small restaurant in a little town. The meal was delicious once I got beyond it was Guinea pig. I have eaten goat so many times it is now just a regular food for me. I find it bony. Mostly I have eaten it in soup. I ate reindeer in Finnish Lapland during midnight sun time. It was domestically raised so it didn’t have that gamey taste. I’d mention the blinking red nose but that sounds a bit sacrilegious. It was in Africa where I palate got so expanded food was a great adventure.

My dance card is uke heavy as usual. I have practice tonight, the John Denver book, my lesson tomorrow morning and two concerts, songs of the sea music. Our first Monday night outside concert is next week. It is getting summer busy.