Every season can be nostalgic – but summer is most nostalgic to me.  She rolls unchanged through much of childhood – the pool opens, the fireflies arrive, the mosquitos feast on our bare legs and toes.  We are older so we do older things, that’s true.  But there are no report cards, unless you count the summer loves and new driver’s licenses.  And even today, you have only to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows, and soon the house will settle into a warm, expectant stillness, punctuated by a brief breeze or birdsong, exactly as it would have when you were much, much younger, waiting for summer things to happen.

One – and only one – corn flower volunteered this year, and its color is ravishing.  By contrast, the cosmos flung their seeds quite vigorously, and have sprouted literally everywhere except within my plot.  I dug a few feathery green volunteers out from the wood chip paths and transplanted them into the cosmo row.  Others are inveigling their spots right on the edge of my neighbor’s plots – where they are being tolerated so far.  I’m not sure these neighbors understand that a cosmo quickly becomes as woody and thick as a small shrub.  And I’m not going to spoil the surprise.