Dear July…,

Dear July,

We meet again.

Me? I’m a year older than the last time we spoke.

You? You never seem to change. For the most part, you’re still bright and sunny. A hot tamale for sure.

Me? I have a few more wrinkles in a few more places. Ironic that we can attribute some of that to you. Haha. No, really.

Remember When…

Remember when I turned five beneath the weeping willow tree? The playhouse, brand new, was the destination for a tea party-themed birthday. Bring your baby dolls, the invitations read. Momma tied long balloons to willow branches. Instantly, our backyard transformed into a wonderland. It was the year of the Buster Brown hairdos…

Remember when I turned nine beneath your delta skies? We took a trip to Shakey’s Pizza Parlor and the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis. Yes, that was the time Momma got into trouble for taking a picture of the moon rock. Strange to me, even today, why something that survived four billion years, space travel, and splash down couldn’t survive a 1971 Kodak flashbulb.

Remember when I turned twenty-one beneath the glittering lights of the Ginza District? Tokyo may as well have been the Moon to this farm girl. My friends and I celebrated with Lemon Highs— the ingredients we never knew. The bartender only spoke Japanese, of course, and I knew just a smidgen from my first year language class at Baylor University (which oddly enough included nothing about ordering alcohol)…

Remember when I turned thirty on Lakemere Drive in Dallas? A surprise birthday party that truly surprised me. Tate was two months old. I’d been helping a friend wallpaper all day. Surprise!!! Yes. I was. And I remember thinking how on earth am I thirty?

Remember when I turned fifty-five in Fayetteville? No? Well, I do. Ten days later I broke my wrist in a freak porch accident. We lost the remainder of our month together, July, and part of the next, with surgery and therapy and pain pills. Let’s not do that again, okay?

Enough about me.

Tell me about you.

Do you love that yours is the month of buzzing and chirping and lightning bug nights? Do you smile just a little when the cicadas and tree frogs greet you? When butterflies float through the very air you provide? When clouds drift overhead, hoping to be imagined into dogs and donuts? When the fruit is always sweet at the market, ripe on the vine? When shoulders are bare and souls feel a bit more free?

Welcome July.
Kick off your shoes and stay awhile.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.