Member-only story
Summer of 2019
Summer is not over. Not yet. It’s August 20, and I’m wearing a short-sleeved, black and white, polka-dot shirt. It’s silk, or some facsimile thereof. I have no sweater, no scarf, no cape, no jacket. And my arms are warm. The window of the pub I sit in is open. The fan in the baffled ceiling in the next room turns steadily. The late afternoon light is bright. But, not as bright as it was just a week ago.
This morning, on the drive to work, it was dark, almost too dark for my sunglasses, which I stubbornly wore anyway, at 6:45 a.m. They were needed, even at that hour, just a short time ago.
Summer is winding down, forcing the question, What was this one about? What happened with it? In it? To it? What did I do, see, feel? How was I changed? What will I remember? If anything? Did I use it properly, appropriately, well?
What will be remembered? What comes to mind first is peach pie. Peach pie, crimped at the edges. Peach pie made by hand in Tahoe Meadows, in South Lake Tahoe, in California, in a rustic, raw wood kitchen, in small cabin, a cabin I’d visited since I was a kid.
It was a summer of shortcake. Strawberry shortcakes and peach shortcakes, sweet, flaky biscuits topped with cut fruit macerated in sugar and whipped cream with a little too much vanilla due to my impatience to use a measuring device of any sort.
