I am sitting at a battered, water-ring stained table in the kitchen of my Casita de Adobe.  I stare alternately at my coffee cup and out through the fly specked screen door towards the yard.  I watch an old red hen, scratching in the gravel for seeds possibly blown in by the west wind.  The yard dog lays in the shade of a mesquite bush, one eye open just enough to watch the cat, walking across the yard with airs of a much more regal creature from across an ocean.

The air shimmers with the heat of an early summer.  There is a dustiness and a haziness about the landscape.  Things seen are not crisp.  Summer will be a long time leaving. We will have to plan carefully to avoid the sun and to remember the spots of shade that develop during the passage of the day.  Shade will become a thing of premiums during the coming months.

I am dreaming today of many things.  Dreams are easier on an old brain than remembrances.  Remembering requires an attention to detail. Dreaming allows you a fuzzyiness about details and allows you to slant things a bit more.  Simple dreams can be the thoughts of the first north wind that will eventually come to a land of heat.  Dreams can be thoughts of putting on a sweater in the mornings to avoid the chill of the previous night.  Coffee tastes much better if you are wearing a sweater.  Ice tea tastes better if you are sitting bare-chested under an elm tree in the shade.  Ice cold spring water tastes best anytime you are thirsty.  I dream of these things, maybe to keep from having to remember, maybe just for the pleasure of writing my own thoughts.  Who knows?

Select a spot and do some dreaming.  Let your mind float, to an earlier time, to a time in the future or for things in the present.  It requires no equipment other than an imagination and a pleasant place to sit.  Could be at an old table, a rocking chair on a porch, or a stool under a tree. 

Gary C