We\’re in the heat of the summer, now. From my car on Route 183 as I drive to Kent I see the soft-colored chicory already in bloom, tiger lilies, a smattering of some kind of small yellow flower I don\’t recognize — a kind of vetch, maybe. Bright finches flutter above patches of thistle that\’s gone to seed, feasting. But it is dry here even though nobody\’s talking drought yet. Bone-dry when you dig down in the garden beds. Hot dust comes up with the hand shovel and settles on my sweaty arms. Thunderstorms miss us, skirting north or south. I\’m tanner than I\’ve been in a long time: brown hands, and the hard lines of a tank-top pattern across my shoulders and back.

Alone in the garden in the heat I feel I\’m beating something, emerging victorious from a test of will or strength or endurance. As I work, kneeling bare-legged in the hot, dry grass next to the garden beds, weeding or watering or harvesting peas, I know I\’m doing what\’s necessary. I\’m stronger than you think. This is a life my family couldn\’t have imagined for me — my family who think I\’m crazy, terrible, a liar, lazy. I am none of those things. I\’m out there with the garter snakes, the bunnies, ladybugs, toads, honeybees. The mama deer and her warm spotted baby.