Seasons-though summer's best

How could it be that summer is almost gone? The intense heat has now given way to cool, crisp mornings, with fall creeping in and close on my heels. Don't get me wrong, my days are still plenty fierce enough with heat for me, yet the pleasant smells of spring, that engulfed my senses have long since vanished with the gentle breezes that carried them on their wings and encircled me.

When I was young, summer was my favorite time of the year. It always had been for as long as I could remember. Not because it was a break away from the school year, because I always enjoyed school, but just simply because I loved feeling the warmth of each day and the evidence that the sun had kissed my skin with a tan only matched by some aboriginal tribe, thus making it indisputable that my heritage was, indeed, Cherokee. I'd spend my days lying out on the swimming dock, in one of my many bikinis, either reading a book, watching the boats go by, enjoying the way the shadows danced about on the huge leaves of the sycamore tree growing on the shoreline, smiling as my sisters fought to try to stand and balance on the large innertube we used as rafts, or embracing the daydreams of a young love I held in my heart. In those days, I never once pondered the thought of actually ever regretting the summer heat. It was the very essence of the core of me. As I child, I could spend my days tucked away under some ledge of a rock, surrounded by red oaks, pretending to be hidden away in a cave, making myself a pillow out of thick green moss that grew under the overhang of my bluff. I relished the gathering of acorns which the squirrels had missed to store up the previous fall,  and I used them to decorate my "cave," along with unique stones and driftwood I'd gathered from the lake's edge. My mind took me places rivaled only by Huck Finn, himself.

Yet as the seasons in my life changed, I no longer grieved when the hot summer would drift way, only to introduce the changing of leaves and the announcement of fall approaching. I had long since also learned to enjoy the early springtime too. When my children were young, all four of them, and we moved to Dallas, Texas, I remember eagerly planting my very first herb garden. It was very small, as were the funds to lavish upon it at the time, but I still delighted in it and the simple pleasure it brought me. The boys would be up early, starting their school work for the day, Nic awaking first, to get an early start, thus forcing Kyle to arise too, because he didn't want to be left doing his work long after Nic was off playing with the legos without him. Adam was practicing his alphabet and numbers, Molly still sleeping the morning away, and I'd step outside with a clean load of freshly washed laundry, ready to hang in the morning breeze. Inspite of the hardships we were enduring, I looked for things to make me smile: like the fenceline covered with tangled honeysuckle perfuming the morning air, (taking me back to my mid-school days where my best friend, Areta, taught me how to suck the sweet nectar from the pale blossoms), or the mama rabbit and her 4 newborn babies that were safely "hidden" in a hole in the ground in the middle of the backyard, or my newly planted herb garden, which I encircled with purple and yellow faced Johnny Jump ups. I quickly learned that the ants, which also accompanied my backyard, thought that I had planted the delicious little edible flowers just for them, "thank you very much," they seemed to say. The small pasture behind our backyard just came alive mid-spring, with an endless sea of deep purpley-blue Texas bluebonnets, sprinkled among them, were brightly dressed indian paint brush wildflowers in brilliant orange and gold. I can not tell you the hours I spent taking in such a visual splendor of beauty. This may sound silly to someone not taken to noticing the simple gratification of: flowers, trees, birds, insects, rocks, seashells, driftwood or leaves.....but one would have to be completely "dead" to all his senses if he did not notice the pallet of exquisitness, laid out by God Himself, in the form of a solid sea of bluebonnets in the springtime. Could I cry or did I? Absolutely. When I see such beauty, I thank God He created eyeballs, so I could be so blessed to behold such a sight. Does it sound melodramatic? Maybe. But I make no apologies. For as long as I can remember, I have been enthralled with and loved dearly anything in bloom. Afterall, how many 7 year olds receive crape mrytle shrubs from their grandma, as a birthday present. *smiling*  Yet, it took moving to Kansas City, Kansas to taste my first experience of spring or early summer, by way of the Linden tree. I first noticed these, often, multi-trunked trees, while on a late evening walk. Long before I actually took note of the tree, itself, the intoxicating fragrance hit my senses in such concentration, that it almost left me drunk by the multitudinous danggling, honey scent blossoms, almost hidden under the heartshaped leaves of the waving boughs. Never had I been introduced to this tree before, and I wondered why. So I set out to do some investigation. I learned that it thrived in just a tad bit cooler weather than where I was from, and that they were extremely common in Europe, also known as the Lime Tree there,(although it bears no fruit neither smells of lime) and that it is also referred to as Basswood. One of the things I love about this tree is the way the leaves on the branches almost droop lazily, while the pale white to golden blooms hang like gaudy earrings from a Spanish flamenco dancer. Somehow, this tree just makes me want to crawl up underneath it and take a nap. Maybe that is why one of the beneficial properties of it's blossoms is considered a good sleep aid. Nonetheless, this conventional tree does not hold it's jewels long enough to enjoy, and I found myself crying for the last gulp of perfumed air on one of my mid-summer June walks.    

Now, it is late August, and while the heat still wanes, and I'm packing up to move back to Oklahoma and then on to Honduras for several months, in the next two weeks, I hold tightly to all these memories in my mind. While we will be flying out towards the end of November, I will get to enjoy the changing of leaves, the sight of porches decorated with pumpkins, gourds, and dried corn stalks once again, before I step off the airplane into, what feels like, hot humid summertime year 'round in Honduras. With growing older, comes more of an intolerance to heat than what I delighted in during my younger years on that swimming dock of our fishing resort, or the cherished years of my children, where we spent many blistering summer days on the banks of the cool running waters of Elk River. Yet, I believe, with this move to this foreign land, will awaken in me, all the feelings of my youth, when summer heat was my greatest desire, and it will spark in me, not the reminder that I am aproaching my "fall" years, but that my youthful strength will be renewed with the Central American sun, not to mention, a whole new spectrum of tropical plants, birds and insects, my inquistive inner child is just waiting to explore. I long ago wished it could always remain summertime, and now, it's seems that wish is about to come true. *laughing at the thought of myself, once again in a bikini....oh my!*

Trujillo-the tiny Carribbean village of my new home.