all I ever wanted

Summer lends an extra layer of sentimentality to certain things, the sky full of rabbit tail clouds, the sun painting even more freckles across Tolliver's face. Hank's hair can't seem to decide if it's blonde or brown, and his skin covered in face paint and temporary tattoos and chalk dust, the atmosphere of creation hangs around his body like a mist.

The season is also testing my listening muscles. Did you know crocodiles cannot stick out their tongues? I'm remembering summers when my eyeballs were sore from all the requests to Watch me! Now, reports on the microenvironment at the bottom of the community pool make me feel a little crazy. Maybe the swamp of July arrived too early, heavy and cloying, like a warm hug. That heat, combined with every out-loud fact and knock-knock joke there ever was... I don't know, it all feels like a hair shirt of conversation or of weather or whatever, it all feels like so much. Not to mention the cooking - turns out everyone needs to eat dinner every single day.

But at night Hank still asks to be tucked in and I imagine wrapping blankets around all the hope that lives inside him. I imagine the boys grown and gone, able to make really good conversation and maybe, on occasion, a really good meal to share with me. Right now though, despite the ceaseless talking and the constant cooking, life is really beautiful.