ten good things, & other things

01. a sweet, sweet weekend with kira, and a reminder of how easy a friendship can be—what a rare gift.

02. roasted tomato soup and beet pesto and spring minestrone and all the glories of summer produce.

03. bright blue hydrangeas from the market, now on our table.

04. postcards, letters, and packages in the mail. new bra, new books, chicory root to make this!

05. scoring a $70 book on fra angelico for $17 at the used bookstore downtown.

06. a job that I love and an employer who offers constant encouragement. also a rare gift.

07. summer travel plans: cincinnati! charlottesville! chicago! denver! possibly maine!

08. returning to old journals and memories from last summer at this time: in iceland, with derek.

09. all the friends who have traveled to visit us, drank coffee on our front porch, slept on our air mattress, and ate dinner on the kitchen floor with us.

10. this month of june, which is always a good month.

Lately, also:

Listening all day long to Told Slant's Going By. 

I am trying to find words for the movement from dusk to darkness in the summertime, how slow it is, until that last moment of light which flickers out suddenly like a flame. It's like this: the sun holds on to the day, as if they were attached by a string stretched taught and long into the evening, the tension growing before snapping into the darkness of night, only the constancy of the fireflies carrying us across the divide. That last moment of light is anything but slow: it is sharp, quick, easy to miss. I want to spend this summer waiting for that snap.

[our tomatoes and peppers, much larger now! honeywell pentax, 35mm]