We’ve reached the point in the summer where the crickets’ song is gaining the upper hand, slowly rising in volume and intensity and the songbirds’ melody dwindles, and then, eventually, the crickets fade, too.

End of July is lush and full; end of July is swimming season.

In the last week, we’ve swum in four lakes. Beneath our bare feet, the sand varied from pebbles to smooth as wet dust; the water murky or clear from our shoulders to our toes. Ever present are the Vermont mountains, from Craftsbury’s smaller hills to the sheer cliffs of Willoughby.

Sonorous is the word for this season; let it ring.

Here’s what I’m reading these days:

But there was something there, something imperfect, something sharp and bent and rusty, that tore into him somehow, that made him believe the human condition was one great and mournful but still achingly beautiful cry.

– John Gregory Brown, A Thousand Miles From Nowhere

Lake Eligo, Craftsbury, Vermont