Tea, Flowers, and the Essence of Summer

On Saturday, my husband bought me a tin of tea - ‘Hot Cinnamon Sunset’. It’s spicy, sweet, and cozy on these moonlit summer nights. I’m discovering energy reserves that don’t depend on coffee, but my mind is still in the hazy, half-focused light of summer - undirected and lazy.

I’ve got flowers in the house - fading pink lilies; cosmos, daisies, and bee balm on the altar; and undying plastic petals on the flower ‘lei’ a nice boy gave to Yarrow at a Mexican restaurant. Today and yesterday are cool. It’s comfortable after a week of steamy days, but the constant rain this morning is making it hard to appreciate. I’ve a lovely new recipe for Blueberry Maple Corn Cake, and blueberries all over the yard, just waiting to be picked and popped into a cake, but the rain is too heavy to go picking, and the air is too damp to bake well. Maybe tomorrow will be clear enough. Maybe I’ll have cake with tea in the afternoon sunlight.

Last night, when it was still dry, I took my tea out to the yard where torches kept the bugs away and the heavy yellow moon peeked out between clouds and trees. Yarrow dozed to her father’s guitar, and birds sang in the trees. Nothing feels more like summer to me than that.