I don't think I get a greater sense of joy than when I'm sitting on my back patio, surrounded by so much natural beauty and being serenaded by the crickets. It's interesting how their sounds layer on top of one another to produce such a loud chirp, as if it's one big cricket, and then, slowly, the sounds begin to effect a delay, just disrupting the synchronization enough to sound like there are many, many more crickets. Then, in an undisrupted symphony they somehow mesh again into one big sound. Maybe this is how the adage, "lulled to sleep" came into use - it's definitely a sound that would sooth the anxiety, calm the mind, and bring on slumber. Quite a sublime part of the night. I almost can imagine myself in a Tennessee Williams narrative. The cool of the evening after a hot, hot summer day. The chirping of the crickets, the water softly flowing in and out of the fountain basin, and the faint sounds of some New Orleans style jazz wafting up the hill from downtown and into my backyard. With my bare feet propped on the porch railing, I can picture myself wearing some shear linen nightdress - I'm already barefoot - and sipping on a mint julip waiting for Paul Newman to come walking up to the porch all sweaty and exhausted from putt'n in a hard days work on daddy's plantation. Ya'll know what I mean.
Whoa, back to the high desert of Carson City. The evenings are rather lovely here in the summer. Now I'm beginning to feel a cool breeze. But the mornings are sneaking in under a cooler layer of the next season and, as usual, the warm will not last. I can only hope for that Indian Summer that we always seem to welcome just as our Nevada Day rolls near. This is my favorite season, when the angle of sun makes the shadows a little longer, and the color of my surroundings gets deeper and less saturated with the green of plants growing in their glory. A time of change, visually mesmerizing. Fall will be good, full of many memories. But Winter will be another story.
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