Early Morning After a Summer Storm

The rain blew in at night with fierce winds, dramatic thunder and lightning. It moved through fast but enough rain fell meaning no need to water the garden. Last night, after a particularly violent gust, I heard a noise and peered out every window looking for downed branches or toppled furniture but saw nothing. This morning, while the kettle boils for my tea, I walk the yard to look for damage. I see that the garage door popped open. Maybe that was the noise I heard. I’ve been lazy, keeping it closed by laying the weight of a rock against the door rather than wrestle with the ancient lock from inside. There’s not much to steal in there but still, I’ll make more of an effort now.

Around the back of the house, a potted fern has toppled. I set it right. The air is cool. The oppressive heat and humidity of recent days has lifted. I see my neighbor Ken through the fence. He is sweeping up the water from around the kids’ play area. I’m fond of this young family. I call out a greeting and we chat. He tells me the electricity went out for about 10 minutes. Mine did not. Their house is a little higher up and must be on a different line, he says. I promise that later, I’ll retrieve and toss back the ball that landed in my weedy yard. He’s taken to sending me photos of my garden with circles drawn around where the most recent ball has landed. These make me laugh. They are welcome to walk through the gate and retrieve it but it’s better I do it since it entails ducking under low-lying peach and pear branches through ankle high plants. I’ll put on boots and spray for ticks. 

I go back inside and make my tea and rather than my usual ritual of going back upstairs to sit on my bed and read and write, I go back out on the porch. I straighten the cushions and hang the plants back up from where I put them on the ground last night to catch the rain. The sun is low enough that it’s still shady on the glider where I sit to watch the morning and drink my tea. A slight breeze is blowing and feels delicious on my bare arms and legs. A firefly moves across the porch, slowly floating mid-air like a lazy helicopter. Almost daily, I find one around my kitchen sink, seemingly lost. I scoop them up and move them outside. Maybe this is one of those kitchen-displaced bugs, lurking from days ago. I wonder — isn’t it time for them to sleep and recharge so they can glow later? 

I look up at the branches of the Norway maples. A group of four remain as my only shade in the front yard. I miss the oak tree cut down a few months ago because it was dying. The house feels naked now, fully exposed to the full morning light.The stump and logs rest in the corner of the yard waiting for my missing handy man to come with his splitter. I make a mental note to text him again. A few birds are flitting between branches overhead and I shield my eyes from the sun to try and get a better look at them. I think they are likely Robins, perhaps the ones born on my porch only weeks ago.

While I’m gazing up at the branches I notice that the leaves on these trees are sparser and smaller than usual this year. I worry, are these trees dying too? The leaves on the Mulberry tree growing next to the garage are also less dense this year although the berries are abundant. Are my trees also mourning the missing oak? Swallowing the last of my tea I think yes — they yearn for and miss their yard companion of decades. I know a little about this yearning but I trust they, like I, will carry on and bloom brilliantly again for years to come. Now they are mourning and I understand as I too still search for shade no longer there.