We didn’t have lawn furniture. We had blankets — old blankets that took their place beside the winter weary hanging coats and resting boots.

Laura Ingalls Wilder book in one hand and blanket dragging from the other, I told my mom I was going to read in the grass. “Haven’t you already read that one?” she asked. “Not outside, no,” I said racing through the screen door. She smiled, seeming to understand my youthful summer logic. 

I learned quite early on that the words took on new meaning outside. Let loose in the warm air, they wiggled like white winter toes set free. Bouncing in breezes. Flapping with wings. It seemed to me that I was returning the favors given by each book read in the trappings of the cold. Housed in the wintertime, they allowed me to climb inside each page. To travel without fear of inclement weather. So on these sun-filled days, it seemed only right that I would let those same words out. And the language they took on was magical. The voice of freedom. Maybe all things (and mostly people) tell a better story without restraints. 

Yesterday I finished reading the book Flâneuse,by Lauren Elkin, from the luxury of a lawn chair.  ‘Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], a noun, from the French, a form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer. This is indeed a book made to be read outdoors. I wandered, and yes, even dawdled through each luxurious sentence.

I suppose my love, nor logic, has never lived indoors. I wish for you the same — words filled with so much meaning, they need open spaces. Lives filled with wandering paved and gravel paths. Loves so vast, so high that the birds envy and try to reach. Throw those curtains wide. Fling windows and doors. Step out into the wiggle of toes and heart. Breathe. The day is opening!