Longest day

I refuse to believe that the longest day is approaching -- all these bliss-filled summer nights where the light lingers long into the evening, the garden is blooming, the tomatoes now taller than me, our trip to the magical island in Norway is less than a month away -- and I wish it could stay this way forever. School is out, my house is filled with long-haired girls in shorts, pink geraniums are bursting in their pots outside every door, Maharishi is happily cooking his smoked pork chops and spaetzle. There isn't a much better time anywhere, I'd imagine. It's not always like this, it's not always I sit atop this cloud, listening to the dusk-drawn coyotes in the canyons, the children next door playing in the garden, the girls in the bedroom trying on make-up and facebooking boys. We're having a dry New Zealand riesling and planning the future. Three weeks from now we'll be sitting on that perfect island in the Oslo fjord, staring out across the skerries, under the melon-pink sky, furiously peeling cold shrimps and dipping them in majones mixed with romme. Maybe I'm Amazed, he's singing. Trying very hard to remember this.