Oh, dear.  Sunday still makes me miss you, despite how impractical that is.  And unless I start from there – well, it has to be said, before I can say anything else.

Before I can say how I fell in love again with this plain, green place.  The swells and curves of its horizon holding steady along the roadside.  The blue Saturday sky and the promise of rain, no matter how white and harmless those shining, puffy clouds may be.  Open the windows.  Not in a hurry.

Before I can tell about the bull frog groaning from the dark, stone crevices lining the pond, or the ornate pattern on the toad that skipped away between the green stalks of the larkspur.  “That bullfrog would eat that little toad for lunch,”  Ann told me.  “They’re cannibals.”

The breeze from the river, brushing away the rising heat for a little while.  The vanilla sweet fragrance of valerian, as delicious as a bakery – and the thick familiar spice of peonies unfolding as I cut my share.  The immeasurable privilege to ogle their louche, decadent petals for a few days, as if they were my own.  Cornflowers already at the farmer’s market, and even some ranunculus.  Dude crooning Pink Floyd from the pop-up tent stage.  “Home…home again…I like to be here when I can…”  Dude.  No one at the Fort Atkinson Farmers Market is that hung over.

But mostly: talking in the quiet kitchen over iced tea.  Talking in the kitchen, in a home where I am at home.  No need to be good or not cry.  Just drink iced tea and talk and listen.  How much closer to heaven can Saturday get?