Summer nights

Seeing my husband’s reaction to a Texas summer sunset tipped me off that his re-entry to Texas was faster and deeper than mine – and mine was really fast. One simple pleasure here – or, anywhere – is the evening summer sky. The nighttime summer sky in Texas delights, even in the city. It’s different from Maryland’s evening sky; the lower latitude changes the sun’s rays, making them seem closer. Powder bright blue skies dissolve into richer blues, and backlit pearly clouds mass; then orangey purple hues melt into colors of gray, ever darkening – especially if I look west.

I have loved summer nights – here or in Maryland; they are an ancient badge of being grown-up. Before I got this badge – this right and privilege of staying up late – I was overcome with an unhappy sense of injustice. Robert Louis Stevenson understood the feelings, writing one poem I thoroughly understood!

. . . In summer . . . I have to go to bed by day . . .When I so wanted to play it was not fair to . . . have to go to bed by day!
(A Child’s Garden of Verses)

Then one summer I was old enough. I remember the thrill of playing hide and seek in deepening shadows, lit by a zillion lightening bugs. And, I have not ever gotten over the exhilaration being old enough to stay up late – although I have regretted it from time-to-time. All part of the old rubble of a past life that somehow will build up this autumn garden. (Isaiah 58:11-14)