Seattle in summer

Seattle, in summer, is a most agreeable city. Sun shadows flicker a changing green through the maples outside and onto the wall of my apartment. The light is long; in the evenings, I sit on the deck and read The New Yorker. Doors and windows open, we all share the music, the cacophony and motion of the passing cars, intriguing bits of conversations. Here, near the University, the parking strips are dotted with "free" furniture that recycles, and comes and goes, as students come and go. Sun warms up smiles, clouds dissolve into puffs, and we are released from the bondage of winter jackets. Fleece could have been invented for the purpose of comfort during the many damp Seattle months. But summers I wear cotton, my California clothes, the flowered pajama bottoms, T-shirts, sunglasses, plastic earrings, shorts, and tan my legs. On blue sky days, driving over the hills, the stark snowy peaks to the west, the Olympics, and the east, the Cascades, cradle the city in fingers of epic proportion. I lived here once before and who would have guessed that featureless and forbidden Sandpoint Naval Air Station would transform into a park with tide pools, a parade of orca sculptures, public boat dock, a field for ground-nesting birds, and a lake clean enough for salmon? Organic blueberries, peaches, and sweetly pale Rainier cherres are in season and then quite quickly gone. Over too soon, that's summer in Seattle.