porch sitting & sun tea

Easing into my first week at a full-time office job, and pleasantly surprised at the way the mind works. How very productive it can be when we think we are fully occupied with non-creative tasks. One nice thing about an office job is the post-its that are always within reach for a quick list, a snippet of an idea. I don't mind letting things simmer for awhile, and sometimes dormancy is okay too, leads to something fruitful later. Evenings fill up with trips to the park to let Winnie run or, as is often the case, drop into a herding stance whenever a strange dog comes in to sight; the garden is almost unmanageable and our sunflowers are monstrous and heavy headed, and there are new things to try, new ways to eat a zucchini, and so much basil. And there are silly and fun distractions like four seasons of Mad Men now on Netflix, me wishing I could steal Joan's wardrobe for my job (and maybe a bit of her spunk). Oh and large stacks of books from the lovely Columbus library -- things like Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems and  Vincent Huidobro's Manifestos Manifest. I sample, I write lines hoping to expand them later, and later has not come yet.

I used to hate summer for its thick warmth, my mom's insistence that I put down that book and go enjoy the sunshine, the necessity of tucking the book underneath my shirt and finding a bit of shade or the branch of a tree to read it in. But now there is sun tea and a porch to drink it on, bricked sidewalks in German Village, city sounds like hovering helicopters, and the heat is nothing you can't settle into.