Last evening following our exceedingly healthful seasonal dinner of assorted vegetables and mixed bean salad we lingered into the twilight and the mosquitoes upon the balcony overlooking the pastures and the gentle river. It is a hardship to withdraw from the summertime perfection in mid-July. The balmy air from the south completed the idyllic ambience. We departed the heavy black plastic armchairs on the balcony after having positioned them appropriately for our next visit, a sculpture set as a surviving reminder of the sublimity.
But once again this morning I awoke to the spectacle of what is assured to be another mostly sunny day with southerly wind gusts and noticeable though entirely excusable humidity. Beauty thrives at this time of year. Nor is it only the burgeoning fields of cornstalks wavering in the wind; or the quiet motion of the river; or the drifting performances of the birds high in the air. The river is marked by kayakers, canoeists, flat-bottomed boaters and those singularly ambitious types standing upon a board like a Venetian gondolier. As well I’ve witnessed the porcelain arms of youth in the startling afternoon sunshine; I’ve heard the shrieks of children swimming in the river; and seen the gentlemen proudly riding in their open cars along the breezy country roads. Punctuating the air from time to time is the sudden whiff of barbecue smoke and grilled steak.
There is no need to pronounce a destination amidst this environment of superlative indolence. Everything proclaims its satisfied adjustment. The major occupation has changed from recording the progress of the stock market to assessing the height of the cornstalks. Meanwhile the field of soy beans gathers its thriving complication while uttering a plateau of dense greenery. And I am magically beaconed by my tricycle, anxious in its subterranean stall to bolt into the atmosphere beneath the azure dome.