Thoughts and Feelings of Summer

The crickets and katydids are deafening as I attempt to write. Even through the drone of tinnitus, a hearing affliction that robs me of some of the high frequency details of life. Night sounds whisper of the flush of summer, the fullness of living things just before they begin their decline. A decline toward the end, to autumn and on into winter. Or just the dog days of summer.

Riding, I feel the changes in my bones, as if genetically programmed, an evolutionary alarm to prepare for the coming cold weather. Strange as the temperature in the morning as I wander toward breakfast pushes past 80 degrees and humidity barely alleviated by the rush of air across my chest as the Vespa moves along the road. The old church in Linden Hall, Pennsylvania, stands silent in the thick air. Something is changing.

Old Apples and Summer Dreams

Across the road at the Rock Hill School is an old, abandoned apple tree heavy with disfigured fruit, victim of insects and weather. Exactly the sort of fruit that sustained childhood adventures as we perched in trees, pocket knives slicing and carving away the bad parts to provide sweet and sour flesh. Last acts of summer before the onset of fall and the return to school.Continue Reading