Cicadas begin to sing. Like sakura, something never noticed till I went to Japan.
For some reason this summer feels long-ago. I can precise the ones it feels like: 1980, newly on bikeback, bicycling out to the Danforth on warm sunny evenings: not something I'd do now, BTW; 1984, fully employed, with money to burn on dates and theatres and things like that. The weather can't have changed that much, surely, that a coolish generally dry summer feels 30-nen buri (err first time in 30 years)? Well, maybe. July is always hot, and the few years it wasn't it was humid (2004) or I was in too much pain to notice (2009) or Other Stuff Was Happening ('82, '96.) So yes, so far, a return to a pleasanter past.
(When wet, this summer goes right back to the '60s, cottage days indoors doing jigsaw puzzles of Parisian street scenes also in the rain-- cafes with the chairs tilted over the tables, grey skies, those round kiosks with theatre posters on them. I still don't know what artist it was did the original: googling the names I sort of remember, like Utrillo, gets me nothing like these pictures at all.)
