Springsfest returns to Yellow Springs on July 8, bringing a day of beer, food and live music to the lawn of the Bryan Center.

I could stay out here all night, looking at the white stars, the golden fireflies, the dark shadows against the dark house. Everything I see prompts the question, Are you seeing this, are you really seeing this? I want to see; it feels like knowing, which feels like living.

Recently, I wrote an ode to my bike after a particularly fun bike ride. This past week, my bike and I got closer still, when I rode it naked through the streets of downtown Columbus.

Long Pond was a lake, despite its name. It hung like a particularly wet piece of laundry on the line that was Moose River. The river fed the lake, and the lake, nine miles later, fed the river. Long Pond was a pause in the river’s flow — the river putting up its feet and taking a break.

Being able to bike this trail was exactly why I like biking so much: you can explore without limits, indulge your imagination, and physically connect with the world around you, all at your own pace.

And that’s how childhood seems to me, a place more than a time. I still dream about certain things: the creek, the cherry tree in the backyard, the concrete front stoop that was a clean, if somewhat bumpy, slate for drawing.

It’s 90 fierce degrees outside, but summer is done. Labor Day arrives to wake us from the green dream.

Time was wrinkling. I was leaving one party and stepping into another, long past.

We were peering into the universe — back through time, as my grandfather loved to tell me when I was a girl.

“Hoffman’s metal detector seemed to indicate something, and she set it down and crouched to get a closer look. She produced a small trowel and dug around a bit, flipping over a flap of grass.”