Are You Ready for the Summer

Bombing down back roads, singing along to Boston, the wind keeping me cool blowing up my t-shirt sleeve just as I lean my arm out the window.  I’m thinking of the ice cream stand two towns north and nothing else.

I see it up ahead — Lightning Tree.  Suddenly it’s that day last summer, churning grey and sheets of rain. As I approach the tree, its trunk suddenly glows orange and a hot, white finger points down from the sky.  The loudest thunderclap I’ve ever heard, and the tree bursts apart as I pass.

It’s today again, sunny and clear.  The cleaved trunk is covered in new green growth, lumpy, misshapen, and not quite as majestic as it used to be, but still thriving — just like us.  And I smile, because I realize I never noticed the tree when it was perfect.

Are you ready for the summer?