
Early mornings in the summer are my favorite. That cool, crisp sheen over everything, a dewy freshness that heat and humidity haven’t quashed yet. I used to dog-sit for our neighbors back in the 7th or 8th grade, and while you couldn’t find me up before 11 any other morning, on those days I’d roll out of bed and pad across the driveway in the rosy dawn to let Buddy out and feed him breakfast. Those mornings I sat and waited on the stoop for him to come back in, dew from the grass clinging to the tops of my feet, I’d feel buoyed by the thought of a whole day stretching long and open ahead of me — a wide world of dense, lazy, baking-hot summer to come. For that moment, though, it was just stillness. Sleepy anticipation on a misty summer morning.