Summer's Door

Summer is knocking on the door a month early and it brought with it sweltering temperatures more suitable for the middle of July; it arrived so suddenly it gets difficult for us poor humans to adjust. Everything tripled in size in a matter of days, desperately springing into bloom as if not to miss the narrow window of spring that’s closing way ahead of time.

The late spring bloomers have to share the stage with the first summer flowers and they eagerly compete for territory while displaying a noisy mix of colors and textures that seems to be put together haphazardly.

It is so humid already, especially at night, when the air gets infused with a fragrance I can’t identify, but whose intensity is amplified by the unseasonably warm temperature. It smells of overheated foliage, myrtle and sea water, like a tropical island on the eve of a storm, a very confusing scent for a heartland dweller in the middle of May.

I’m waiting for the great southern magnolia to bloom; my favorite tree usually looks exotic in this climate with its evergreen leaves, large and shiny, and its giant fleshy flowers, pure white and dripping with perfume, but not this year. This year it fits right in with the rest of the excess and with the hot air doused in the wet scent of the ocean which, for some strange reason, smells like home.