From the Hammock

Arguably, the most productive thing I’ve done this weekend is mow the grass.  Not that anyone’s arguing.  I also spent an entire day in the hammock reading, mixed up an icy pitcher of home-made lemonade, and watched my daughter make a pear and peach pie from scratch.  Then I ate a wedge or two.

We know how to slow down, here in Connecticut, come Memorial Day weekend.  A neighbor stopped by with her dog to bring me a flyer about a potluck and sat in a lawn chair to catch up for a bit.  My son had four guys sleep over in the boy cave, playing League of Legends until the middle of the night.  I opened all the windows in the church when I arrived early yesterday morning, hoping to cool it down a little before the service, and one of the elderly parishioners joked that the circulation should be tolerable as long as we didn’t get an arctic blast.

We’re having a stretch of days so green and lush that every leaf and blade of grass is the same ripe, primal color, and I don’t need a prophecy of doom to remind me we are now living in The Garden.  This is innocence, untroubled paradise, a moment to store up while elsewhere the world contends with tornados and war.  We’ll get our share of loss again, like we have had in the past.  We’ll pay for our wisdom.  We’ll mourn.  It is Memorial Day, after all, and far away in another state, my father’s grave has yet to see its stone marker, but today I’ll honor the once-alive by living myself, and relish from my hammock the fecund beauty of May.