1. 4 mosquito bites. My first ones this summer. 

2. The day hasn't broke yet and I walk around back to water the garden and to set the sprinkler in the yard. I miss the deer. 

3. The sound of the water. I can hear it running in the basement. Itchy arms. 

4. The way anxiety makes your body itch on the inside. I tell him I am going for a bike ride. Alone. I take my cruiser all the way to 5th street. I see wildflowers and weeds I cannot name. I see the crane standing in the water. I see red-winged black birds balancing so perfectly on the tip of a tall stalk. I feel the breeze in my hair and the burn in my thighs. 

5. I begin The Keeper of the Bees. He is on a Great Adventure and so am I.

6. I don't know if I turn my eyes to the sky enough. 

7. The things I hunger for change in the summer. I have practice restraint with the cherries. I crave tomatoes and cheese and bread. I want to eat like every meal is a picnic in the south of France. 

8. Accumulation. 

9. But I've had two days of socializing and need to take a break. I need to be alone. I feel badly for not coming out to watch the fireworks that the neighbor is setting off. But I just don't have it in me. I grab a glass of wine and make a small plate of salami and some thin slices of Gruyere. We watch the fireworks from my bedroom window. 

10. I can do this.