When I was 16 I worked in a summer camp, getting a free summer in the country, spending downtime with my friends, enjoying arts and crafts, or learning to drink Turkish coffee from the Israeli counselors. That’s where I met the 9 year old Bee Whisperer.
As we move through the calendar year, we each have those special things that evoke the season. In the summer, it may be the taste of barbecue or fresh berries, the sound of splashing water, or the scent of citronella candles. My cup of tea is, well, a particular cup of Japanese tea.
I like to leave an “analog” tip that goes right into the drivers’ pockets rather than online. It’s not a lot, but it’s a grueling job, and I appreciate the people who do it. But I had never thought of it as meaningful.
Our apartment building faced another, and in between were the sad, scratchy lawns we were forbidden to play on (probably because doing so, and we did, made them sad and scratchy), as well as benches, and painted hopscotch and skelly game diagrams.
I’d look up at the corners of the ceiling above the foot of my bed and see them. But every time I got up to look closer, teetering on the mattress on my toes, the putti would promptly disappear.
The time when I worked in a Japanese bookstore, and sold Chinese cookbooks and a bunch of Japanese tchotchkes to Mick Jagger.
