Dear month of July,

Dear month of July,

I hope you won't mind if I don't consider you "July" so much as "mid-summer": it's a crucial difference, I think you'll agree, since "mid-summer" implies that I still have around half a summer left. Summer is long, in my opinion, especially when you're not nearing the end of it, when it starts to seem short. That's because of a little thing we call "perspective," where things that are up close seem different than things that are far away. Except in this case--in the case of time--things that are up close, for instance "the end of summer" from the perspective of "almost the end of summer," seem very very tiny, whereas things that are far away, such as "the end of summer" from the perspective of "mid-summer," seem a long ways off.

"A long ways off" seems preferable to me, month of July, vis a vis "the end of summer." (And sorry, month of July, for all those quotation marks. If this were oral discourse, I could have done those quotation marks with my "fingers.")

Here is the evidence that it is mid-summer:

1. A Saturday party that started in the evening while it was still light, still warm, and ended very late, when it was lovely and cool.
2. Dry heat that felt just like an oven when we were standing on the corner of 3rd South and 2nd East at about six-thirty p.m.
3. Bike-riding in the evening.
4. Only the second watermelon of the summer. For real.
5. First time at the farmer's market.
6. I have not given a thought to the teaching of composition except for the kind of thought that floats high in the air above my head, like I'm literally thinking in thought balloons.
7. Iced tea (green + mint) made and ready to drink.
8. fireworks galore ignited in the street last night (by the firework-happy neighbor).

That's a fair pile-up of evidence. Wait:

    9. lemonade.

See: even more evidence. Month of July, I salute you and hereby dub you "mid-summer." I am looking forward to you. Please last a long, long time.

love,

htms