Lazy days in Richmond filled with beer and Malaysian ramen and tater tots and excellent friends gave way to stunning alpine vistas and playing music under tents, in the open air, mornings spent traipsing around the Blue Ridge Mountains, maybe a rehearsal or two in the afternoon, some reading by the pool, then retreating in the gray crepuscule to your sprawling log cabin in the woods (built ca. 1837) for simmering mugs of spiced tea and an immodest dose of HGTV.
Returning to Baltimore thrusts you right into the midst of its Pride festivities, a symphony of sweat and skin, stickily hugging friends spied along the parade route, dizzily dancing through the blur of color and pleather and feather, all vibrant with love and melting slightly under the afternoon sun. Sunday was spent poolside in the ruins of an old mill, converted into businesses and restaurants and a Roman-inspired swimming area.
Dinner parties with vibrant summer produce, fresh berries and cream, baking blueberry pie, lounging around a pool overlooking a sprawling field, watching a family of deer graze a stone's throw from you as you graze on hummus and sip on rosé and beautiful conversation, then drink in beautiful-er serenades of Chopin nocturnes 'round midnight, sambuca for a nightcap, in bed way past your bedtime but it's fine because you have a whole day to relax and nap and have dreadfully dull musings on the beauty of your neighborhood, its cobblestones slick and saturated from a summer storm, the park quiet save for a stray dog walker.
You lament the twilight of July, for August brings the beginning of the end of summer, and you've never been good with endings of any kind.