i ate my breakfast at the coffee shop this morning.  i walked out the kitchen door with my hair hanging down my back, damp from the bath, the house and kitchen terrible in their messiness, and ezra eating his breakfast.  i walked up to the corner for coffee and a bagel....the house was too hot and un-clean to think about making coffee and finding something to eat at home and tom was working early.  and when i stepped into the air-conditioned, coffee soaked space, i wanted to stay a few extra minutes.  i spoke to a neighbor who wondered if i'd stopped putting out my daily poem and i explained that it is really time consuming to find tiny little poems that aren't too dark, to fit on my little chalkboard. but that i plan to keep it up, it's just been a busy few weeks. (did i tell you, i had been putting a poem in the garden every morning at the studio?) i sat and ate my bagel beside a table of middle-aged men who were having a morning conversation about cars, the city of detroit declaring bankruptcy, and seeing girls doing yoga in the park......interesting in it's perfect cliche-ness.   now i'm home and there is a breeze that has been swooping up from the lake. i am sitting on the porch with my coffee and computer, flanked by ezra and stella, sprawled on either side of me.  and i'm heading to the studio to finish the quilt tops i've been working on before the full strength of the heat hits.    

it has been a collection of still and breathless july days that you have to slow down and sink into, to endure.  everything swollen with moisture.  the humid layers of paint on the old panelled doors, jammed in their frames and centuries of dampness hanging in the air.  decades of scents seeping from the damp wood and plaster.   the floorboards creak and are damply sticky on my bare feet. i love these days, when summer doesn't compromise.  all my work moves outside.  the cats sprawled in the sun.  and ezra on the porch swing with a gigantic fan keeping him cool.  my sewing and ironing under the huge tree that shades the deck off the studio.  lots of water kept in the refrigerator.  a fog of heat moves along the lake.  and an occasional breeze.  i don't get as much done, but the day is full of the sweet rarities of summer.  so the trade off is a fair one.