It’s time like this that I tap into my inner Bradbury, as in Ray. We need dinosaurs and magic and circus tents and running like the wind. No sad stories today, no tales of grief and loss.
The sun rises shortly after 5 a.m. right on time in early summer, and kids are fixing to run across fields chasing rabbits. The poor rabbits are scared because it’s their destiny to be chased; that’s why God made them so fleet. Kids just know they are soft and warm and gentle, so they run hoping to hold them and cuddle them.
If I had to choose among the thousands of stories I’ve read in my lifetime to date, I think Dandelion Wine is my favorite, because it’s about being a child and loving to be alive and right here and on the spot. It’s based on Bradbury’s memories of being 8 years old.
That’s too young to have known much pain and what the heck is grief anyway? No, when you’re 8 all you can see is the horizon and racing to get there and what miracles are waiting just beyond.
When you’re 8 the world is a magic place with only wizards and good witches and for the love of God Montresor nothing bad is going to happen, not now or ever again.
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure — that’s what I’m chasing, that’s what I’m thinking about, that’s what all the world is all about.
Summertime is light and warm, and darkness may come but not for long. I may hear thunder in the distance, but even the rain is warm this time of year, and the sun will be back before I wake up in the morning.
I remember all the reasons I have to be glad and grateful, and I push away any melancholy and clings to these reasons with an almost fierce passion.
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Every so often I accidentally take a brilliant photo, if I say so myself. As I was walking Summer the other morning, we bumped into a young rabbit just a few yards away. I pulled out my phone and took the picture, which I put on Facebook with the caption, “No, Summer, we leave those alone.”
I love how it turned out — the leash stretched to the limit, Summer at high alert, the rabbit frozen in that “Oh no, if I don’t move maybe they won’t see me” position that rabbits get into. And the beautiful green of early summer framing it all.
