Leaf through your address book and the scraps of paper tucked in your wallet. Call the couple you met in the park. Invite your cousin, your neighbour, your daughter's teacher. Err on hospitality's side.

Fill a cooler with beer and leave it open. Mix a drink that's bright and sweet, easy to swallow. Keep it in a pitcher jammed with ice and close at hand.

Load the stereo with classic rock, put the speakers outside, keep the volume high.

Ideally it's summer. All year 'round it should be summer. Women look better. Men are less grumpy. Kids play in the yard. Haul out deck chairs. If you have a pool, good for you. Dive in.

Grill corn-fed beef over charcoal. Make it rare and ignore any who'll sour its taste whispering of vegetarianism or animal rights.

Take off your watch. Every minute is worth itself and more. Once the sun is down, time stretches. Light the bonfire. Spread yourself. Move from person to person, pulled in every direction by what you hear, laughter the only punctuation.

At some point, a body will sway to the music, shift a foot or swing an arm. Pull whoever's nearest with you and turn up the tunes. Call out to your cousin, invite him to dance. Grab your wife and find the beat. Dance till sweat beads and your cheeks tingle.

At some point tonight, stop and look around you. Cherish the gift of this moment.

Who will you hug first?

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

AT A TABLE FOR TWO *

Two golden parmigiano wafers. Baby zuchinni, cauliflower, tomato, red pepper, radish. Scoop of tomoato sorbet delicately softened to collapse on the tongue.

A bottle of Gigondas, supple peach and citrus flavours, the intensity of the Provencal sun.

Ravioli, feta, dried tomatoes poached in sweet onion broth, the voice of salt, the memory of its bite.

Grilled lamb, sprig of parslane moistened with thyme and garlic broth, the ancestral taste of lamb--meaty, herbal, generous.

Frozen mousse, lemon and mint. Connoli, hazlenut pastry, sweet-potato cream. The taste of you, bright, sweet, essential.

Our tongues return to the land, to the damp soil and its gifts, noses finding forgotten scents. The rich smell, the sweet flavour, of what we can do for each other.

* with a debt to an article in the August 2007 Gourmet Magazine

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

ON THE ROAD

It's almost ten, our bags strewn in a crescent in the hotel parking lot. We promised ourselves we'd be on the road by nine. I've loaded and unloaded twice already, trying to fit everything into the trunk, trying to keep out the kids' toys, trying to disguise our cross border-loot.

He comes out as I start loading for the third time, climbs into his Ranger XLT-- jacked up and powder blue with a hard top cover. He moves it from the spot next to me to one three down.

I'm busy tearing the tags from my wife's new lace teddy when he returns, holds up a finger. "Bit of black paint from your door. You put these big bags in the trunk then took them out. Your door kept scraping my truck as your car moved up and down."

He leads me over to show the damage. It's a tiny mark. I have to crouch and squint to make it out. "Truck's brand new," he says. "For three months I've been parking it at the end of every lot we go to. On an angle to keep cars away. I wouldn't be so upset, it's just my wife loves this truck so."

Crouching there, I realize it's going to be a sunny day. We won't be on the road by ten and maybe not even eleven, but this teddy I'm holding, it's going to look good on my wife. That thought avalanches to reveal time's generosity stark and bare in the summer light. Think big and there's nothing but time. And that's all you could ask out of life.