"Das ist Gut" - by Linda Aleta Tame

Summer. She calls for drowsily basking on the deck. She demands you slow down, take a break, drink lemonade.  She's bossy that way, yet her temperament can be so calming, so quieting too.  Her breath wisps across your cheeks, and she gently closes your eyes, drawing you away from the world around you and into her hazy, lazy dreamland.  

Oh, that dreamland!  In it you wander the glistening, colourful streets in Paris, France, dodging puddles, navigating your umbrella over and under those of passersby.  You get lost when you take a side street from the bustling Champ Elysée.  A storekeeper, who crafts magnificent guitars and violins, kindly tries to direct you, but you don't understand French. His voice echoes away, and it seems you've somehow teleported to an Italian kitchen in the Tuscan countryside outside of Florence, Italy. 

Red pots and pans hang from the ceiling. Leafy herbs line small stoneware bowls beside the stove. The cook, Francesca is working at a small table. She has flour in her hair.  Her joyful conversation is in Italian, but her laughter is understood in any language.  Francesca draws up the skirt of her apron to dab the corners of her eyes and continues turning a crank on the pasta machine.  Her smile warms you, stays with you even after her image pixelates and transforms into a monument of Johann Strauss II.  

Now you're in a gorgeous park in Vienna, Austria.  Stadtpark.  You walk toward the music.  An orchestra exquisitely performs "The Blue Danube Waltz" right there in the park. Elegant dancers in formal gowns and tuxedos float with the notes, gliding away from and back into each others' arms. You almost faint from the breath-taking beauty. A park bench is conveniently right there, so you sit with an elderly woman who tosses bits of bread to at least a hundred waddling ducks near the pond. Glints of golden sunlight ripple through reflections of the lush overhead foliage.  "Das ist gut," she says.  You smile and nod.

Summer.  She moves you with her heat, pushing you indoors to cooler air.  You don't want to leave her dreamland, but she's bossy that way.  So, you go inside, peel some potatoes and review those blissful encounters with far-away lands. Soon you will write something, something about a summer's dream.