Launching Summer

The lake exploded around 2:00 this afternoon, an aquatic beehive poked with a Memorial Day stick.  Buzzing boats hauled screaming thrill seekers on tubes, creating a happy drone synonymous with summer.  Temperatures soared into the 80’s.  The sun’s radiance baked earth into a grass-covered brick, a timely welcome for the soles of bare lakeside feet.    

It’s quieter now.  The setting sun hangs low in the sky, and most boats have returned to their piers for the night.  Only a few pontoons idle here and there like oversized swans paddling through the evening, relaxed and content.  A rowboat just ambled by, carrying a white-haired gentleman at the oars and his sweetheart of many years on the back seat.  It sliced through the sun’s golden path, an easy-going symbol of belonging.

Tomorrow we’ll join the weekend activity as grandchildren’s squeals erupt along our little segment of shoreline. The hammock will sag, overloaded again.  Lake water carried to the sandbox in plastic buckets will soak away from hand-dug moats surrounding hand-molded castles.  These traditions are worth practicing.

Then after tomorrow we’ll settle into the longest, warmest days of the year, days filled with dragonflies and watery breezes.  Days of cosmic and personal blossoming and fruit bearing. No wonder I count my years in summers.