I’ve showed up again to tell you that summertime is the best thing. Lucky me, I live in a temperate climate, and do not have to rush about meeting deadlines put upon me from other people; my days often pass in what seems like a natural and unhurried way, even at my work: in winter I carry wood and build fires, and at this time of year, there is lots of strenuous gardening to do.

Excepting the occasional heat wave, it’s typically just Very Warm midday, with the nights down to 50, and the cold fog often hanging on until late morning. One morning in July I used the furnace, which showed me that I am turning into an old lady. This week included another extra-chilly awakening, but I took the conservative route and added a wool cardigan to my first two layers.

So, summertime is perfect, in my case, for sharing a poem mentioning The North Wind. His counterpart around here is The Marine Breeze. I’m not that close to San Francisco, but I do often think of the comment (mis)attributed to Mark Twain: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

What I love is that at least by noon, and usually much earlier, I can walk around my garden in the pleasant air and eat breakfast next to the pineapple guava tree, where graceful arches of salvia flowers lean in, and the Sun persuades me to take off my sweater.

THE NORTH WIND AND THE SUN

Betwixt the North wind and the Sun arose
A contest, which would soonest of his clothes
Strip a wayfaring clown, so runs the tale.
First, Boreas blows an almost Thracian gale,
Thinking, perforce, to steal the man’s capote:
He loosed it not; but as the cold wind smote
More sharply, tighter round him drew the folds,
And sheltered by a crag his station holds.
But now the Sun at first peered gently forth,
And thawed the chills of the uncanny North;
Then in their turn his beams more amply plied,
Till sudden heat the clown’s endurance tried;
Stripping himself, away his cloak he flung:
The Sun from Boreas thus a triumph wrung.

The fable means, “My son, at mildness aim:
Persuasion more results than force may claim.”

-Babrius, aka Aesop (2nd century) Syria
         Translated by James Davies