The children and I had A Day today. The weather was glorious, for starters, and that always helps. It has been beautiful here lately, temperatures in the mid-eighties and the humidity gone missing. Deep blue skies and those wispy clouds that make the sky seem so much higher. The locusts continue to sing, but the song is without oppression. Crickets sing in the shade, and the days remind me of what late August felt like growing up in Pittsburgh: longer shadows on the lawn; cool breezes coming through windows flung wide; school pending, its grasping fingers closing around the days.
Good days, long lost.
Today the children and I headed down Hope Valley Road with the wind blowing through the van. It was early for us to be out — not yet ten a.m. — and the long shadows promised a good day ahead. We went to Guglhupf, a fabulous European cafe, and ate croissants filled with chocolate at a table outside. I don’t remember when I’ve been happier.
Then we were off to Duke, where we stopped to say hello in my graduate department office before heading on to the Gardens, gardens we know and love so well. We laughed at the ducks who were taking their morning baths. We laughed at other ducks still snoozing on the lawn until William, with amusing and steady step, encouraged them into the water. We sat on benches because we wanted to. We snacked under the wisteria gazebo, heavy with vines and the marvelous scent of boxwood. We took off our shoes and soaked our feet in the fountain. We spied catfish and coi in the fish pond. We admired waterlilies.
We went on campus.
Today was Orientation Day, and so the campus was filled with clusters of milling students. We stood out, you can be sure of that: there was No One else around who looked like our group, and not one of us was wearing flip-flops. William insisted we hold hands in the bookstore. It was Very Busy in there, but I found my books in no time, and then we stood in line to pay.
The fellow in front of me had a delicious selection: Goethe and several books by Foucault. I tried to engage him in conversation on the Goethe, but either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t understand. I was with three children, after all. Is it even possible we speak the same language?
But I didn’t care. I was having a wonderful time. I had all my books (okay, one was out of stock), and I got them all used (except for one), and I laughed when the children tried to pick out books for me, books that were near mine, but that were assigned for another class. They all looked good, but I will only have time to read the ones I have to read.
We spent the afternoon with Bonnie and her children. They all ended up in her baby pool on the back deck in various stages of undress, all of them Entirely Wet. And when we Finally got home, I made a picnic which we took to the pool. And there we played all together under the dimming sky, laughing and splashing and, it must be admitted, shivering just a little. It felt Decidedly Cool when it was time to get out.
Now the children are sleeping and I would like to do the same. But I have some reading to do. Class starts on Monday. So I will take Southern Crossing: A History of the American South to bed with me, and I will try to read at least one chapter.
I suppose it would be nice to just turn out the light and not bother with the reading. I am tired, after all. We did a lot of walking today, and had a lot of fresh air. But I really should read.
Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. Can you imagine? I just might be the luckiest woman alive.
