The Choreography of Summertime

Double rainbows and summer afternoons.
Bottom photo by Caroline Shepard

 

Between grading and writing the semester wound down,

We rode our bikes through the streets of Brooklyn.

Police sirens blared when a boy was shot in the Gowanus.

Neighborhood members cooked in Prospect Park.

‘That’s the smell of the summer,’ noted number one as we rode through the park.

A few elders caught some fish on Coney Island.

We dipped our toes into the water.

'That’s warmer than it was Sunday,' noted number one.

The stress of the year seemed to fly away.

So we explored the neighborhood.

The kids danced and said goodbye to the year.

College students marched through Barclays Center, cheering for each other.

All of Brooklyn converged for First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. 

The whole world seemed to be there.

The kids kvetched about going to church.

And number two came back with  a poem by EE Cummings.

'I have to read this next week,' she explained.

May we all be open to little, to the freedom of summer, to wonder.
The mysteries were everywhere.
We read call of the wild, contemplating, a 'path' that 'began  nowhere and ended where it remained a mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it  remained a mystery.'

We ate pasta on Carmine Street and looked for comics all afternoon, searching for that perfect magna edition.

Walking from Carmine Comic Books up to Bryant Park.

Meandering through the rain up 6^th Ave from the West Village up to 41^st street.

Where the comics reminded us to laugh at ourselves.
The kids studied midsummer nights dream, learning to look what fools these mortal be.

Even with the residue of pain and loss everywhere.

Mom and I watched Shadowlands, remembering its ok to sometimes

Put away the stiff upper lip and feel everything, even the grief of saying goodbye.

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.”  CS Lewis reminded us.
Its all part of a mystery 'began  nowhere and ended where..."

A double rainbow reminded us there are always colors after the rain.

  

may my heart always be open to little – ee cummings

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
   

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile