Today is a Cape Cod summer day. The temperature is 72°. The sun is warm and backed by a blue sky. It is a day to be outside.
I can hear lawn mowers, always a Saturday ritual when I was growing up. Back then it was the clicking of blades across the grass, always in a pattern, never haphazard. Now I hear gas motors.
When I was kid, I trusted everyone. My mother had done her parental diligence by warning me about strangers, especially strangers with candy, but my town always felt safe. Everybody knew my father. I was George’s daughter. I was out and about during the day, but I stayed close to home after supper, close enough to hear my mother yell when it was time to go inside. I loved twilight when the sun was finishing its day. Everything was in shadows from the last of the light. When the street lights came on, they left circles of light on the road below. That’s when my mother called us inside. We knew it was coming.
When I lived in Ghana, Accra, the capital, was small. I took taxis for 20 pesewas, the standard price to go anywhere in the city. I often went to the movies. Some nights I walked back to the hostel. I loved those walks. The city was quiet. I remember seeing men talking together while sitting in circles on the sidewalks. They seemed to speak in whispers. Small lanterns by their chairs give them a little light. They always said good evening.
I still love the dusk when the night is just beginning. I light candles all along the deck rail and sit outside. Sometimes the only sounds are the night birds and the insects. Sometimes my neighbors are on their deck. I can hear them talking. They seem to speak in whispers.
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