23 April 2001

Every year, it's the same thing, almost like clockwork. I'm up early - sometimes as early as 11:15 - and I roll over to look out the window at the field and gauge the day. I can tell a lot about what kind of day it will be by looking at the field: if there are deer in the field, it will be an active day; if there are no deer in the field, it will be a slow, cranky day, with many hangovers. This talisman has never failed me. Today, there are no deer.

I tiptoe down the main spiral stairs, stealing only a second to look into the Blue Bedroom, to see who managed to score last night. (Who can tell, with all those bodies?) At the foot of the stairs, I investigate again, though my options are slim. If I take the path that lies ahead of me, the slamming of the screen door will awaken all the dogs and some of the people. If I take the road less traveled, I'll invariably trip over Josh's head, and most certainly wake up Ben, but I will have avoided whatever dew is left on the lawn. Josh's head it is; and so I go, on to the kitchen.

With the 8-quart pot of water on the stove, I hold my head over the pot to inhale the steam and try to clear my head. Yet looking up, and out through the curtained windows to the ray of sparkly-sunshine coming in, I feel calm, and the day smells sweet indeed. It is then that I hear it, the gentle pattern of click-whirr-silence, click-whirr-silence. I know that noise? A squirrel in the attic? No. Woodpecker? No. Yes, got it: the Bic lighter. My day takes shape, and the steam is transformed into sweet smelling smoke, swirling in my nostrils and easing the pain of my morning. I love the smell of fresh grass in the summer. Malcolm is awake.

With the coffee ready, and the twin scents of delight mixing, and wafting gently through the house, Ben and Toby are up, and preparing to wake the others - with a lick to the face or an unsuspecting thwack of the tail, whichever comes first. The coffee keeps pouring, and we're on to the eggs and the "breakfast meats", as the hierarchy of sleep deprivation reinforces itself: first in, those with kids; followed by the married-no-childrens; followed by the singles; followed (in separate steps) by the hook-ups. Except for the exceptions to the rule, like Rach, who always sleeps the latest, so fuck that part. Nevermind.

Here, around the breakfast table, with the sun in the sky, is the fulfillment of my summer dreams and my summer ritual. Dumping ice in the Grafix to "take the edge off," things settle in. Can we really have killed so much booze last night?, someone asks. Did he really drink to his own "I never" and imply that he's had a tryst with a teenage girl?, someone else asks. Are the kids in the other room, because Daddy would like another go with the "Jamba Juice," if you please, comes a third voice. Pass the english muffins, says a fourth voice, kind of mumbled, teeth unbrushed.

We are a close-knit group. Twelve close friends, three kids, and two dogs have shared another intimate experience, with all the attitude of "The Breakfast Club" and all the remote grittiness of "City Slickers." And I? I feel a little like Judd Nelson and a little like Jack Palance: one way or another, we'll all make it home in the end.