This Summer Every Day is a Sunday

Today we went to the zoo. It's nice to have this hidden gem living in New York City - a suburban zoo center with a great reptile collection, stunning fish and human-like spider monkeys with priceless facial expressions. All within 10 minute driving distance and with barely any other visitors, especially on a weekday. Me and crowd don't go together so that was a nice retreat.

Eventually we did bump into a group of young YMCA campers all in identical oversized yellow shirts with a camp logo. I asked my son if he missed being part of the camping crowd, to which he responded that he didn't. He'd rather go on a trip with me. And I didn't exactly miss sitting at work while he was taken on yet another tour on a school bus under reckless supervision of his neurotic teachers.

I let him use my new camera and he enjoyed running around and taking photos of every single species on the exhibit. He did get some really nice shots so thank god that's another feature he takes after me, for his dad is a useless photographer, capable of nothing more than blurry lopsided pictures.

The trip added to the calm I'm feeling these days. The balance I have finally achieved because I'm no longer pulled in a number of different directions. I do get slight nudges of guilt for not doing much, but just being feels too good, too surreal to give it up and set out to climb the next mountain. Summer is given to us to halt, and take a deep breath, recuperate our strength and then maybe leap forward. But not until I've had enough of the vast summer sky, the sensation of breeze on my skin, sudden flashes of fireflies close to the grass, the delicious taste of vegetables in my garden and a sense of complete happiness and harmony, that washes over me with an almost suffocating power.