Cool Shade

It's chilly outside this morning, but one thing about the day makes me think about the sticky summer weather to come. It is shade, the deep green depths of it, the way it cools and soothes. I grew up in a shadeless subdivision, playing in meadows and along creek banks for hours each day under a full and merciless sun. The two trees in our front yard were saplings I was dying to climb. By the time they were large enough, we'd outgrown the house and moved away. Maybe it's this early shade deprivation that explains my attraction for cool, dappled glades; for fern and hollow; for the quiet, naturally air-conditioned woods. Each spring we extol the return of flower and leaf. Shouldn't we also celebrate the return of shade?