Today is a perfect day. It is 77°. The bright, bright sun is framed in a deep blue sky. Every now and then a leaf is ruffled by a slight, transient breeze. The dogs are napping. They are exhausted from eating a few treats and visiting the yard after a long sleep. I want to be my dog.

Bugs never bother me, have never bothered me. I am not a fan of mosquitos. I don’t understand why they exist, the same with flies. I remember being in awe of a praying mantis. It appeared in the garden by the front door. I thought it the strangest, most amazing looking bug I had ever seen. In Africa I saw my first centipede. I knew what it was and quickly moved away. They bite. A scorpion I didn’t see was running across the floor of my living room. One of my students saw it, grabbed my sandal and did away with the scorpion. I saw fire ants. They were fast and were running in what seemed an endless column of ants. I was so mesmerized I stood and watched for longest time. I was late to tech my class.

When I was a kid, my world was filled with wonder. Just steps away from my house was the field. In the summer it was filled with tall green grass and inhabited by brown grasshoppers. We used to run to make the grasshoppers jump. I’d wcatch them with my hands and put them in a jar with holes in the top. My hands would get brown spots. I figured it was grasshopper poop. I never kept the grasshoppers. The game was to see how many I could catch. I always let them go back into the grass. On one side of the field was a copse. It was where we found a shack which had a pile of girly magazines. We were still so young the pictures shocked us. We didn’t stay there long. In the back the field ended at the dead tree. It was just a trunk and a big limb which was still attached but on the ground. We could go around it, but we never did. We climbed over it. No self respecting kid walked around it.

We followed a path from the dead tree to the swamp which was in an opening surrounded by woods. The path continued beyond the swamp and ended at a paved street. Much later, long after I had moved, the field, the woods and the swamp were replaced by elder housing. My father used to call it wrinkle city.

The morning is lovely, pretty. The sun is shining, and it will be in the 70’s. The air is still. I have noticed more red leaves on the oak trees, and a few odd trees with just one branch of red leaves as if it were practicing for the full array of fall. My yard has had its fall cleaning. Bushes and trees were trimmed, the yard was raked and the pile of branches in the backyard was cleared. Even better, they took three bags of trash.

I can hear a lawn mower, the summer Saturday sound I most remember. It was as if the fathers in my neighborhood had had a pact to mow at the same time every Saturday. The sound, though, was different than today’s sound. It was the clipping sound of the hand mowers.

Yesterday I had a concert and didn’t have time to write. I have another concert today, but I was up earlier than yesterday and have no Cape Times to read. Because I have become a night owl, I tend to sleep away the morning. The dogs sleep in along with me.

When I was a kid, Saturday was my busiest day. This time of year I was out and about. Mostly I was on my bike. I have pictures in my memory drawers of that bike. It had been a Christmas present. I couldn’t wait so I even rode it on that snowless Christmas Day. My mother took a picture of me standing by the front door holding my new bike by its handle bars. It was blue. A basket was attached to the front. I remember that when I went over bumps whatever was in the basket bounced up and down. Books sometimes even bounced out of the basket. I held on to the bread and milk when my mother sent me to the store.

In my mind’s eye, I can see the whole route to the white store. Some of the houses were big and old. One house, the newest house, was sandwiched on a hill. The garage was on the side under one part of the house. I knew the people who lived there. The mother was French. I can see the route I took: first street on the left from my house, across the road, down the straightaway then a turn to the right, a stop by the busy road then across that road to the store. It has probably been at least 65 years since I last took that route, and I can still see it all. I wish I remembered why I was in the kitchen this morning.