The Garden This Summer

On the deck: a bistro table of Marakot stone, concrete, and iron with two matching chairs; a teak side table with impatiens; next to it, a weather worn director's chair with a bottom and seat back of faded red canvas; before it, a peace lilly that has surved me for about 12 years and in 2006 a fire followed three weeks of absence and neglect.

Mine has been a most reclusive summer, solitary, immersed in reading, and watching movies.  Should any other live like this, he should find the balcony, porch, patio, or garden takes on new dimensions.  When the apartment has been made dark and the candles lit on Friday night, that above becomes my small temple for a full cup (recommended for a hot day: Tavel, a refreshing French rose).

When the computer room is dark, and equipped with blackout curtains it often is, that out there is light and a breath of fresh air.

The weather will break in a week or two or three, and I will venture out farther than the deck, but here it seems my little bit of heaven and delight away from the electronic everything, an indulgence in the organic.

It takes a small vacation--in this economy, a "staycation" perhaps--to look at the arrangement of activities that add up to day-to-day life.  Although I want to snooze like the cartoon ne'er do well Andy Capp, and may, that time has not yet come.  Give me another 20 years before I become an old dog before the flat screen hearth; consider me nonetheless in retreat.

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