Early Summer

 At dusk most evenings (as of late) we don bathing suits, mount bikes, and coast down the hill to the pond. When we arrive on our particular stretch of pond, we sometimes see see children on floats, women with dogs on leash, or just an empty stretch of small sandiness. We part cool water with arms pushed wide to our sides, dive, kick and surface to breathe relief. Across the pond where the rope swing lives, on the edge of the pine forest and clay banks, there are lithe and lanky teenagers, plus younger kids hollering into the water. In another clearing directly across we sometimes see families, kayakers, waders. Two nights ago an osprey hunted fruitlessly and passed some time in an adjacent tree. Tonight we met two new friends, one human and one canine - a lab with an insatiable desire for tennis balls tossed into the water, across the pond over and again.

On the warmest nights we arrive there after others, and stay to watch them leave, one by one. The littlest called home first, the older kids hang on longer but succumb to hunger eventually. We linger. I try to look down through the water's depths and think I see sandy bottom but realize that what I'm mistaking for jetsam is actually clouds and blue sky reflected in the water. I shift my weight to my back, kick my legs out and widen my arms. The rest of my body follows suit and finds the balance and I'm submerged to my ears with a view of the sky, the same clouds in reverse. I hear the kids' voices as though through a tunnel; they are muted, far away, echoing. Somewhere below me I hear the click of a pebble against another and realize there is some activity, some life form going about it's business. I'm floating in the reflected clouds, sky. Sky below, sky above. I right myself and look around. Two heads bob among tiny waves. Clouds float beneath the water. Water bugs gauge their distance and skim, splayed with perfect surface tension, never close enough to catch but never completely out of reach.

We emerge from the pond and towel off. Hop back on bikes and pedal/coast home through the grassy dirt path, under the clothesline, and back to the garage where we deposit bikes. The cat mee-ewes hello and is rewarded with dinner. On goes the music - Nick Drake, Jose Gonzalez, The Shins, Rufus Wainwright - against a backdrop of chop-chopping veggies and butter sizzling in the pan, or coals smoking on the grill.

A rosy glow from sunset. Fireflies. Voices from next door. Perhaps there will be ice cream from down the street, or from our own kitchen (blueberry/strawberry last time). Early Summer.

We are here. The time is short. Staying in the moment is easy on such a night.