Jan Peppler HOME
Exploring Our Connection to People and Place
Summertime
I LOVE Summer. It’s my favorite season. I’ve always preferred to be miserably hot than even slightly cold. Cold makes me irritable. Heat just makes me lazy. I can live with lazy. Especially in the summer.
My love of summer goes back to Michigan when I was a kid. Long days filled with sunshine. Long nights filled with mosquitoes. Finding ants inside peonies. Chasing fireflies in the evening. Picking raspberries. Eating blue gills fresh from the lake and fried in butter. Spitting watermelon seeds as the juice ran down my chin. Sticky fingers. Sticky skin. Peeling legs off plastic furniture. Humidity. The frequent banging of the screen door. And one thing you just don’t hear anymore: the rattle of big square fans.
I don’t particularly like air conditioning. Of course, I am extremelygrateful for it. I mean, I’m not a sadist. Summers have gotten hotter and A/C is a life-saver. Only, I find it’s often set too low and too cold in most places. And there are so many days when really all you need is a breeze through open windows. If not days, at least nights. A breeze. And a fan.
My home in Tulsa is filled with many windows. Only problem is that until yesterday, they had all been painted shut. Endless coats of white seeping into the cracks and onto the glass. Years of warping wood. So, while I get plenty of light, I get no fresh air.
Yesterday a handyman fixed that. He pried open six of my twelve windows. And then came the rain.
Falling rain heard through open windows is a treat. And a soft breeze always seems to come with summer rains.
For the first time in years, I went to sleep last night with my windows open and a ceiling fan twirling above me. Just one thin sheet over my body. Just like I did as a kid. Slightly sticky in the warm evening air. And I slept well. Really well. With my little, warm-bellied, softly snoring dog snuggled against me.
This morning I woke to birds chirping and reached for my phone. The morning song of birds has long been my favorite alarm. Only, I hadn’t set my alarm. The birds weren’t coming from my phone. My windows were open. The birds were outside.
I laughed. Such a delight. I missed this. Summertime. Open windows and fans. And birds announcing morning. It truly is the simple things that make life so good.
Jan Peppler HOME 
This makes me soooooo happy!!!!
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Birdsong. Our resident Mockingbird’s serenade is now over with until next Spring. He sang for much of the day and all night, right up until dawn. I miss that symphony of sound already. In the morning we get House sparrows and House finches chirping in the Malvaviscus shrubs. Ours is the only yard for miles with so many singing birds. It’s always fun when the White-crowned sparrows show up. Their song is quite melodic and sweet. Falling rain and singing birds——-I agree. Both make the heart sing as well.
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Oh how lovely!! 🔆
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