Cat kept going to the edge of the garden today. Before we left, she never passed the line of grass at the edge of the stone patio. Now, after we have left her alone for a month, she explores more. First, to be out with her most beloved human, my husband. Second, well, it's, oh, sniff, what's this? oh, what's over here? wow this is a warm surface! ooh! a bird!!
It's not much different than anyone else's train of thought, so lets not make fun of this cat who is old enough to vote.
I'm twitchy, itchy and bitchy, coming back. I'm not sure how much of it to hide.
I'm conflicted about where I want to be. The good Southern girl in me just wants to go back home and take care of my mom and dad and support my brother. My wild streak says, what good would it do? you'd just be pouring good time after bad. Tears find me, when I think of not being able to be there, if they need me. I keep in mind that they don't need me yet. Not badly. Certainly my folks miss me, but I was never Miss Available. Especially with my family, where I developed my four-chambered life, I am partitioned and walled and carefully, compassionately, alertly aloof.
It's shaped who I am and how I interact with the world.
I always reserve the big guns far too late, when my attacker realizes that I am actually not only armed, but willing to unload, I generally get a few powder burns myself. I've learned that I need to walk a little taller, to avoid conflict. Still, I realize that stupid people are eaten by moose on a regular basis, just because they thought the big thorny apartment-building looking thing was harmless. Mostly harmless.
Anyway I'm mostly wild streak. Hubby, when I am on a cooking or cleaning tear, calls me the Domestic Goddess. I remind him constantly that I'm only feral. I'm just here because I can sleep without scratching.
Today the house was closing in on me after a day full of (doubtless inspired) cooking and errands. I had to run out on the bike and pick raspberries. They don't ripen as fast up here, which is good since downhill in Graf, they are starting to wear out. The occasional wild strawberry or chanterelle is a real thrill, and it's never really HOT. Deerflies are vicious, but long pants and Permethrin turned them today. They leave terrible, filthy bites and scars.
The German countryside shines like few others. Silence, grasshoppers, and bees. Smell of warm barley in the sun. A drift of liquid manure, followed by the sunny, furry smell of drying hay. Blue tits fuss and frolic in the birches, and magpies scurry around doing magpie mafia deals. The evenings are long and cool, with a warm golden sun. People talk, and blackbirds perform incredible blackbird operettas.
Soon the evenings will quicken and sharpen, and the apples will redden and ripen.
Mornings will be gilded, not with sun and birdsong as they are now, but with rimes of icy dew, leading to frost.
But for now, summer is wild and broad and in full swing.