suddenly summer

If you were to ask me why my longest weeks away from home are always in spring, I’d probably say something about how summer in Madison is a treat. Spring is fickle: there, or not there, depending on the mood.

But also, it’s easier to return to a summer here than to return to a loaded schedule of classes in fall.

Now for the tough part: it’s hard to have the first Sunday back home. Elsewhere, Sunday is a time of inclusion. Of communal spaces. Of long meals and even longer people watching sessions.

At home, I clean house and do what every other American does: chores around the house.

It struck me that I live such an “un-communal Sunday” life that I don’t even know where the communal spaces are in my home town. Are there any? (Don’t tell me the Union. Student hangouts don’t count. You never see the same person twice there.)

And, I don’t have a grocer or baker who’ll ask me if I was glad to be back and how was my time away.

Yes, the first Sunday home is always very difficult.


On the other hand, I was handed a day of infinitely beautiful summer weather. After the usual house cleaning, I biked to Ed’s farmette. We pulled weeds the size of Texas and generally reveled in being outside, without the summer nuisance of mosquitoes (too early). A frog looked on.





The truck farmers who have been working the land to the side of the farmette have become exceptionally enterprising. They set up a stand where the children sell produce to those who drive by. Not many people drive by randomly on Goodland Park Road, but still, the kids tell me they're doing well.





In the evening, I put on Scottish music from a CD that we were given at the last b&b on the Isle of Skye. I made a supper of eggs with cooked tomato and mushrooms.