This year I decided or defaulted into resenting summer’s approach, which has long been my favorite time of year (ever since marriage & motherhood confined me to a state where the season of life is so absurdly short.)

So that even as I returned to my summer pleasure palace–South Pond–I resented it:

“Oh, this again…”

Which was a terrifying or at least a largely alarming state of mind, particularly after such a protracted winter.

“Had South Pond changed?
Had I?
Was this what it was to age?”

But even in my sourness, there was suspicion.

Was I simply protecting my heart?
Had I lost the capacity to love in the face of inevitable loss?

YES! That was it!

I couldn’t bear another summer ending.
And so I wouldn’t love it.
But then May came, and even with all its cold rain, it wooed me.
And then June, not even through, was sweeping me off my feet.

So that I’m pretty sure that I’m falling in love again, in spite of myself, because this morning when I woke, in yet another dour middle-aged mood, I looked across the room and thought:

“Wow!
Look how beautiful my blow dryer.
I’m gonna take a photo of it in this morning light
and share it on Instagram”