Bills are piling up on my desk; the email has been languishing for days. I’m missing lectures, plays and concerts that sounded interesting. I stopped returning phone calls.
The dishes are piling up in the sink, the wash in the basement. I’m ignoring the cat that needs constant attention. The lawn should have been mowed a week ago, and the weeds have taken over the yard on the side of the house. I apologize to the friends I promised to get in touch with.
But after a long winter of seeing no changes in the mountain landscape and starved for some small growth--like the kinnickinick getting a darker green--the pace has quickened, as weekly now I see summer evolving, as nature heads toward some full-blown perfection.
The purple flags are everywhere in the deep green meadows, more plentiful than I’ve seen here for a long time, intermingling with the yellow banner. In the yard at the cabin, the purple lupine and yellow cinquefoil are blooming, and one columbine has emerged, although several others have buds.
Last week, the aspens were just starting to leaf out, still that lime green of new growth. This week, they are fully established, their leaves fluttering in the breeze as if summer will last forever, which we all know is not true. After their tumultous introduction last week, overflowing from the sudden warm weather and snowmelt, the creeks have calmed down and are running clear rather than a muddy brown.
The yard is full of life: ground squirrels, chipmunks, a young chickaree, looking slightly askew, its fur sticking out at strange angles, as if had just woken from a nap; a still unwary young rabbit, innocent enough of humans and the dangers of the world, to get get close to me while eating grass.
Above where I sit, a nuthatch digs for morsels in the rain gutter. In the sky, hummingbirds buzz each other, magpies scold a red-tailed hawk, swallows dip in and out of the sky, while high above two vulture soar.
This is where you’ll find me, at the cabin or out on the trail. It’s June; the world will never be lovelier.