Summer where I live is about action at, on or near Pittsburgh's three rivers. Somehow being near the water sends a message of taking it easy, though that's now exactly what people are doing outside my window. Boaters noisily speed by, sometimes with a skier riding behind, while bigger boats move in tune with the river's currents, initiating waves that ripple to its edge. Yesterday while watering my new container garden on my deck I saw some women standing on paddle boards in the water. I learned later they were doing yoga on the boards, the newest water-based activity to come to Pittsburgh. Later on this holiday week, we'll likely see kayakers, rowers, and sports fisherman trying their luck.

In some ways all this activity is a celebration of the fact that the water has been cleaned up from the days when mills spilled waste into it. Hurray for clean water and clean air. In this part of the country, we don't take either for granted.         

     2.

I'm remembering another summer day. It was July and stifling hot. I'd traveled by myself to Kentucky to visit my parents since my mother had been ill and the doctors hadn't been able to pin point a reason for her pain. She'd lost quite a bit of weight which, had she felt better would have been an occasion to celebrate, given all the years of diets and attempts to be thinner. We were sitting in lawn chairs in the back yard under some trees to try to keep cool while my father was attempting to install a window air conditioner in their bedroom.

The air seems to stand still and sweat rolled down my back as I uncoiled the garden hose and began running cold water over my 70 year-old mother's still shapely legs. We sat for quite a while in silence, watching the rippling water come out of the nozzle, bringing cool comfort as it splashed onto our feet and legs and soaked the grassy ground beneath us. I asked what she thought was wrong with her. She said she didn't know but, as a nurse, she knew it wasn't good. By the end of that summer, I'd be back to attend her funeral.