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July’s Backyard Musings
A freshly mowed backyard provides a different environment in which to write. There is a choice of two tables. One is pine green plastic, faded from enduring too many years of boiling summers on the Great Plains. The other is an ancient wrought iron table spray painted a wild cornflower blue to match four cloth-seated chairs and canvas umbrella. Blue chair at the green table is a comfortable height for paper and pen.
Citronella tealights flicker anemically in the dry breeze. Bats are probably a better deterrent for the mosquitoes. The flames are light-hearted and silent compared to the neighbor kids playing basketball. Cicadas buzz threateningly from the maple tree.
There’s so much work to be done since he left. It’s the same amount there has always been. At least before, even though she did it, there was the illusion of two people benefiting from the physical labor of yard work. Two or more ate the garden vegetables. Two or more enjoyed the smoky relaxation of sitting around the fire pit. Two or more looked forward to jumping in the soon-to-be raked piles of leaves.
Four or five fireflies wink over by the brush pile. They are thirsty little buggers, dive bombing a glass of pink moscato. Maybe it’s the sweat on the glass they are after. Drunken fireflies send mixed messages!
Sundown happens unnoticed until shadows blur the words.
