It’s almost July and 67ºF and drizzly out. The rain is cool. Not cold, but still, it’s cool. After seven years in Arkansas, five in St. Louis, and two in Tennessee, I forgot that summers could be cool. I forgot that it could be humid and enjoyable. For too long my body adjusted to the energy-sapping heat where May brought 80’s and 90’s, then summer settled in with grim determination hardly wavering from ninety-something until November hit and the temperature dropped to 70ºF.

All this is to say, I feel happy and alive to be in New England and away from the torpid summers of the South.