July 19

Ascend a few thousand feet, and the relative rarity of the atmosphere helps with relief from the summer swelter. From the farm parking lot, you can just see the top third of Wachusett Mountain rising above the tree horizon of the lower fields. It is tempting to escape to the mountains today, ten miles as the crow flies or twenty via route 31 as it snakes its way through Holden and Princeton.

The view from the top is worth the trip, as much as the respite provided from the heat. We’ve stood at the summit and looked back toward home, trying to locate the farm fields as a reckoning mark by which we might know where home and friends remain. We even once jokingly asked Fred to wave to the mountain, knowing that we were to stand on its summit and send our own lofty tidings his way.

Our winter tendency is to draw within, to stay close to hearth and heat, where comforts of family and friends are less bountiful though more focused. Summer motivates its own scales, where the sights and sounds and smells of maturity invite us to sample all that envelops us. There are wonders here, both small and large – wonders from the intricate pattern of a spider’s web caught backlit in the morning dew, to those of a grander scale, of tall grass rippling in the midday breeze, with the mountain that rises overhead in the distance.

It is a comfort to know that as our scales broaden with our exploration of this maturing season, we still take stock in looking toward home, perhaps in measure to reassure ourselves of our familiar securities, but perhaps also to simply look for others whom we might encourage to celebrate in our experiences.

I am thinking particularly of these things today, for at 5:27 pm the Cassini Probe is scheduled to look back toward Earth from a point near Saturn’s rings. It is to take a photo of Earth from so very far away, and I plan to celebrate both my being here and its being there. I may even wave hello.

Notes:

Sweet Corn is ready