It's the little things, really

I beat the sunrise this Saturday morning; I’m happy about that. I am, as they say, up before the chickens, literally.I haven’t heard them moving around yet and the birds are still cuddled up somewhere  because I cannot yet hear their songs. I did see my neighbor, however, pulling his boat going to Marsh Island to catch fish for his family.I am going to the farmers market this morning and this time I want to come home with  plenty  of vegetables – I  need to be there early.I hope to find squash and green beans and tomatoes. I planted my garden late so there is nothing yet to pick except potatoes and I need to find a cool afternoon the dig them up – time before the mosquitoes join me in the garden.

I’m back with snap beans, zucchini, tomatoes, and bell peppers – beautiful “food less traveled” – to quote a sign I saw there. I am drenched in summer and I feel the world slowing down, getting gentler  while the afternons linger and the nights are a spectacle of the waxing moon dangling like an ornament in the nearly summer sky and the June bugs are here with their sturdy shield reminding us of the sultry nights that will soon come to be. The green and blue dragonflies skim the water of the pool and settle on the wire of my clotheslines reminding me , for some reason, of my preschool childhood in Thibodeaux, Louisiana. It was 1958 and my best frends were Lavergne and Jody; we spent afternoons chasing and sometimes catching  “mosquito hawks” , running through sprinkles, and eating  lunches of bologna  sandwiches and Koolaid under the backyard tree. My mom was in the house, my dad was at work, my baby sister was asleep in her baby bed, and I was outside just being “4”, busy making this very simple and enduring summer memory. I really don’t remember much about the pomp and ceremony of my LSU graduation at 21, but I remember being 4 in Thibodeaux. It truly is about the seemingly “little” things for me. I hope you fill this nearly summer day with a myriad of “little things”.

b u

p s