"July 25, 1949," by John Wilde

The painting at the college library, which I thought was titled "July 25," stamped my spirit so that for the next 40 years I made July 25 my own secret holiday, an especially fine one after I moved out here. Every July 25, truly the day of the year most saturated with summer, I fixed special breakfasts, went on thoughtful walks, etc. Thought I'd never see it again, but the wondrous Internet brought me to the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University and let me search its collection for the painting, its full title "July 25, 1949."

My memory was of a still-life centered on a calendar saying "July 25" surrounded by summer vegetables and flowers, but this is a shore scene, with the crab claws, the fishing float, smooth stones and marshland in the background. The torn piece of paper is not a calendar page but a handbill -- it says "Admission" at its bottom.

Truly, I thought, it's not a very good painting; the shadows suggest a noontime sun but the sky looks like dawn or dusk; I don't know of any salt marshes with evergreens sticking up from them, etc. Then I looked up the artist, John Wilde (will-dee), and he (1919-2006) was a Wisconsin surrealist, highly thought of. Had then to adjust my thinking: In Wisconsin these would be crayfish claws, which I should have guessed from the proportions of the float and what looks like a sparrow's egg. A surrealist painter's shadows and skies don't have to make sense. In fact, a surrealist wants to mess with your head. Wilde went on to paint much weirder paintings than this. And only in Wisconsin does a person named "Wilde" insist on pronouncing it "will-dee."

Is My Co-Pilot

I hopped out of the car for a second to get the mail and when I got back in a big emerald-green dragonfly was trapped over the dash at the windshield, panicking and trying its luck against the glass.

I reassured it that it was in no danger and that 90 percent of the time everything turns out okay, then rolled down all the car windows and waited, but the windshield, I guess, looked just as good. So I pointed the car in the direction of town and started driving, and said, "Are you my co-pilot?" The dragonfly grew so quiet I thought it might have died of a little heart attack, but it was only tired because soon it revived a bit. The car windows were down but it wasn't leaving. I figured there might be air pressure from the moving car and figured that after I stopped it might get its bearings. While I was figuring, up and out it went.

Until I saw the photo I didn't see the gorgeous large shadow its wings cast in the slanted sunlight.

Breakfast Alfresco

"What would be fun?" I asked myself and could not come up with an answer. This is very abnormal because I think everything is fun, from hikes to mud to old trucks to blizzards. How else could it be, living in the world's most wonderful place?

When nothing came to mind, I tried another tactic: If I was in love, what would I be doing right now at 8 a.m.?

-I'd be serving breakfast to the loved one.
-I'd make this breakfast from the very best I had, to be the best and most memorable breakfast in the world, all for love.
-I'd skimp on nothing nor would I care about calories, because my loved one is perfect as is and thinks I am perfect too. So I'd use real butter and the works and serve enough to fuel the loved one all morning long.
-I wouldn't care about the number of bowls, pans, dishes, paper towels, or anything.
-I'd go to great lengths, even trotting everything outside to the red picnic table a total of four round trips, to have breakfast in the ideal quintessential vividly green July morning, the grass perfectly mown so any chiggers would have to leap really high to bite me behind the knees.

With day-old French bread, plus eggs, milk, sugar and cinnamon, syrup and some (uncured, excellent, local) bacon I'd frozen and forgotten about, I fixed the imaginary loved one the best possible breakfast and served it in the shade beneath the twin oaks. Then I ate it, in the company of one bumblebee attracted by the fragrance of syrup. Oh yes, memorable. I ought to do this every day for a year.

Gift Wrapped

A full inch of rain had barely woken or greened anything because it's been so dry. Dry means no mushrooms, not since late April, and no chanterelles for sure -- normally the woods is paved with big ruffly yellow ones, and my lawn, when soaked in summer, is host to as many as 17 different fascinating Missouri fungi. Today I saw for the first time that the juniper bush under which grew, annually in autumn, 20 pounds of rare Hen of the Woods 'shroom has been pulled out: sigh.

The walk led me to the former mushroom capital of my woods where there wasn't even an LBM ("little brown mushroom," as in "Never eat little brown mushrooms") to be seen; it simply hasn't been wet enough. As for any hunter, some years are plentiful and some not. I turned to retrace my steps and saw these Dreamsicle heads of Chicken of the Woods, beautifully fresh, ribboned with orange, yellow and white. I took the smaller head, about the size of a cabbage (see the glove, at the very bottom, I put in the photo, for scale) and within half an hour the fronds were roasting to a crisp in my toaster oven preparing for my Sunday guest.

Why didn't I take the big Chicken, or both? Didn't need it, and conservation means don't rip everything up out of the earth. Why not take the big Chicken and freeze it for later? Freezing fungi dehydrates the best out of it.

The Smiling Bowl

Early, early, early, between first light and 7 a.m., or the humidity is oppressive, and you must wear long pants and a long-sleeved high-necked shirt and boots, plus gloves, to pick blackberries from the briar bushes. And you wait all year to pluck them gently (because only the ripe berries are really worth eating) from the thorny twigs, as many as are ripe. It's an annual ritual around July 15 and it's one reason life is worth living.

Even more so if Patrick, who mows the lawn, comes by with a bowl he got at a yard sale. It's a Buffalo China restaurant-ware bowl, the classic with the green stripe around it that looks like an endless smile (it looks like that to me, but I am not normal), and he said when he turned it over and saw the stamp he remembered I like Buffalo china, and here is the whole day of July 15 in a bowl.

The Solar Self

Are we all not like the Sun, thinking we are at the center of everything?

Briefly I went back on Facebook after 19 months, back among 251 wireless friends, and was passionately interested in them and in quizzes, including "What is my soul color?" ("silver") and photos of cats and grandchildren, and not only that, but FIVE-YEARS-AGO-TODAY photos of cats and grandchildren, and furthermore, news and outrages I would rather not know about, that made me heartsick and reminded me I was already so, and furthermore so many people I knew were already so and to the brim, and after two weeks could stomach no more agony and left, but regretfully, because Facebook had made me feel like part of a web, ya know.

I walk between 6 and 7:30 a.m. these summer days so now and then I see something special in the morning light.

Who Wants In?

Shabby siding panel nearest my kitchen door was no problem until somebody chewed starting early this summer, day after day creating a larger and larger hole, then finally a tunnel, then finally moved in but made sure to leave its trash (empty acorn shells) just outside to let me know he or she was there and how much they were enjoying free food and lodging between my walls. The nerve.

Have never seen this creature, day or night. Phoned the handymen to come look. A month went by. Called them again and sent this photo along. One of them arrived today with a wire cage trap baited with lots of peanut butter.

The plan goes like this:

1. Trap whatever creature is in there so we know it's out. When I see it in the trap, phone.
2. Handyman takes the trap somewhere far away and lets the creature loose.
3. That's what he thinks; I'm not gonna phone him until the creature dies in the trap. Serves it right.
4. "Then fill the hole," said the handyman, and that's my job, but he didn't say what to fill it with. My guess is steel wool. I've used it in dozens of holes in my house and rodents can't chew through it.
5. Call again and the handyman will come to patch it up.

Just very occasionally I'm weary of the struggle with rodents, raccoons, and so on.

I'm Invited

Sassafras trees here, and perhaps it's the soil, don't get very tall and have glove-shaped green leaves. A friend came by, dug up some of the root, and made sassafras tea: It tasted like hot root beer. You're not supposed to drink a lot of it; we just wanted a taste. All parts of the tree are said to be fragrant. Later, outside, I found at my feet, like an invitation through a mail slot, a scarlet sassafras leaf, and it stopped me, and reminded me that summer is everything's birthday party, a gorgeous insanity, and the rest of the year is everyday life. I hope you too get an invitation to the party. If summer has a peak, a summit, a day of wonder, it's July 25.

Hope Emerald, Etc.

I prized two pendants for sentimental reasons -- one emerald, not a crown jewel, cloudy but green enough to remind me of nature, and one handsome oval smoky quartz, in superstitious terms a highly protective stone, market value five dollars. Wore them joyfully. Last January, hid them and forgot where, so for weeks and months I have torn closets apart, dumped out winter boots, stood on stepstools, searched the garage, and clawed from the cupboard boxes of Jello, thinking: "Maybe I put them here. Or here. Or here. . ." Maybe I hid them in the bottom of a trash can and they got thrown away, or in the folds of an old sweatshirt I bagged and tossed. Could I have done that? The thought gave me a pang. I'd looked everywhere. They were gone. To get a hold of myself, I recalled the Roman poet Catullus, who chided, "Cease this folly, and what you see is lost, set down as lost."

Even so, in the final week of June before leaving for Washington I sheepishly googled "patron saint of lost items," and murmured this "unfailing" prayer to St. Anthony to find the pendants -- sweetening the deal with an offer, if I found them, of a $20 donation to the nearest church:

"Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints. O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and charity for His creatures made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to obtain for me (request). O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms; and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours, plus $20. Amen."

Son of a. . . In the pantry just a half-hour ago behind a stack of canned tomatoes I found a ziplock bag with the green pendant. I stepped back and felt my heartbeat in my throat and was so grateful I collapsed onto the futon.

I said, thank you, St. Anthony. It is half of what I wanted, so you get $10. Returning to the same pantry and shelf, I moved some cans aside and there was the quartz pendant.

If You Have Good Neighbors. . .

1. This is what you'll get from the neighbor's garden in mid-July: the first fruits, the beautiful overflow. I ate all the little grape tomoatoes that were on the plate before thinking to take the photo! Also, Patrick delivers eggs fresh from his hens. Between these and the pounds of chanterelles (what an astounding crop this year!) in my own woods, and my own hickory tree's nuts from the autumn I hardly have to buy groceries at all.

2. A large pickup truck turning around in my yard accidentally crushed my second Earth box with turnips and arugula in it, so in the remaining box I am growing only basil. The shaken truck driver ("What have I done?!") delivered  to my yard a new planting box, and 40 lbs of bagged planting soil, within the hour.

Black is the New Orange

I vow on a stack of hymnals this is the final time I will ever mention mu---ooms, but (look hard) here was such a miniscule living gem of a snail, exquisite as a diamond, tender as a rice noodle, discovered while I was wiping bits of dirt from a pound of fresh-picked chanterelles, and it too was the answer to my question: Who besides box turtles and pin-sized maggots chews up the Divine Property's mother lode of chanterelle mu---ooms before I find and get a hold of them?

Indoor Wildlife

They're called Wolf Spiders because they don't spin webs -- they hunt their prey and eat 'em directly, as a wolf does. They live in the house--indoor wildlife--but they're usually much, much smaller. I glanced at the shower curtain and saw this:

And then I peeked around the curtain and it was perfectly composed and ready for its closeup, showing its rich leopard-like fur. Did you know spiders move by pumping their legs full of blood?  Anyway, when I went to bed (skipping my shower) it was still there. The next morning it was gone; even more unnerving, although they are harmless. I wouldn't try to vex one of this size, though, or scoop him up in a tupperware and escort him outside. Repeat: "Spiders are our friends."

Something Royal

I never met a George I didn't like. At church there was a tall gangly one. In graduate school, George was the "golden boy," on fellowship, and teachers favored him, and unlike many teachers' pets he was still nice to the lesser people in the world. My father-in-law George was as good to me as my own father, and compassionate because he understood what it was like to have a high IQ in an extended family whose other patriarch didn't have $25 to put his sick dog to sleep so instead got a knife and chased the dog around the yard trying to catch it so he could stab it to death instead. The dog knew the score and outran him. Another George was the organizer of a singles group, and despite his appearance all the females liked him because he could partner-dance while the other guys stood around mumbling, "Two left feet."

So to honor the new Prince George and hoping we don't have to hear about him again for 18 years or so, here's a Queen Anne's lace so beautifully heavy with summer blossoms it can't hold its head up.

Men Taught Me

Men from my daddy on down took me fishing, but I was 45 when I got my first fishing rod and a man taught me terminal tackle, and a year older when I first baited a hook with a live worm not feeling sorry for it. Thrusting the hook through minnows' eyes took another year. I enjoyed fishing on my own, but always feared hooking one because I couldn't face grabbing it and prying the hook out to set it loose; but no problem there, because I didn't land a fish until I was 51, and coached by a man. (The old folks sitting on the park bench behind us cheered as I reeled in the six-inch catfish, so rainbow-beautiful I cried "Let it go!") After that, fishing alone, I caught-and-released and hoped not to catch a keeper because there was no way I could behead it and rip out its guts.

Thrilled to pisces!

Proudly I report that this year I have conquered my girly squeamishness on all counts and am a good angler, man-dependent no more. I can cast. I know which hook and line is best for catching which fish, and can wait until it tugs on the line not once but twice, and catch more than one fish per day. Live fish get unhooked and thrown in the cooler without a single tear running down my face. Yes, I did have a friend with me to (the final frontier) clean and fillet my first mess o' panfish, the bluegills and one small ??? in the photo. But now I think I could cut off their heads by myself. If I had to. If I were hungry.

Thanks, Daddy, Demetrius, Qiu, David, Ken and Jim for helping me unlearn my crippling girlyness and start up a new skill set. (I have no brothers; that might have changed things.) I love fishing. But I don't think I could ever go hunting.

July Morning

With temperatures around 100 humid degrees at noon here in Missouri, the only time to go walking is before 7 a.m., when it's only about 80 degrees...down by where Doc Sargent Road intersects with F, right next to LaBarque Creek, it was all gold light this morning, with platinum mist and silver dew.