It came easy to me, but editors warned of a common fault: for rhyming cards, they said, not so much “moon June spoon.” Meaning avoid the common rhymes, and don’t go for easy sound. Standard goods like “you, do, blue, and new” also made the list; what was a sappy writer to do? Only so many words convey feeling and rhyme like sugar, and let’s face it, there’s no me-to-you without you. So I’d use them anyway, re-arranged and refreshed enough to slip an editor’s eye, and they sold, sold like candy, proving that as long as it sounds pretty, people will hear whatever they want.  A moon that loves you in June pleases; blue without you, nothing I can do?  Like honey.  And my friends, a man who buys cards on the sweet side will not do better than honey.

So. Why are we talking spoons in June and sending the very best?  Because it’s summer, and even if you couldn’t see the wide bright sky or smell sun off the pavement, you’d hear it.  We all have those sounds that ring summer, the slap of wet towels and flip-flops and no thoughts at all.  What are yours?  Mull it over, and while you do, try a few warm-weather sweets, pulled exclusively from the archives for your breezy dessert pleasure:

Key Lime Tarts say crashing waves to me.

Bowls inside or on the porch? Peach-Pecan Cobbler swings like a screen door.

Sizzling Banana Sundaes with Salted Chocolate Pecans. Now with built-in sizzle.

For pure June-moon bliss I’d also point you to Bumbleberry Pie and Good Kansas Limeade. Now – cicadas, campfires, bike bells. What’s your summer sound?

You’re back from Vegas, she laughed.

How did you know we were there? We hadn’t seen them lately.

Oh, I saw it on the blog.

You read the blog? Grinning, me and the Chianti leaned over.  Jeez, I’m so happy to know you’re reading!

She put a hand on my arm.  I scan it.

My friend Peter called one morning last week, and we caught up, talked about dinners, writing, current goings-on. I confessed I’d been procrastinating, and not any regular putting-off, either, but a lethal strain of not-now that includes mentally burying evidence of things I need to do. I’m afraid I’m stuck, I said.  I think I’m stuck.

“What can I do to help you?” he said.

“What?”

“I said, what can I do.  To – help – you.  Today.”

“That is the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Clearly, you haven’t had much of a day.  What can I do?”

Wow.

“You can give me something.”

“What,” he said, “chocolate chips? Brownies?”

“Give me a deadline.”

“What?”

“Give me a deadline.  I…need to finish things.  Writing things, house things, life things.  My own deadlines don’t work.”

“What do you mean, don’t work?”

“They…expire.  I make new ones.”

Silence, then two sips of coffee.  My old penguin mug, chipped.

“Okay,” he said. “You’ve got three weeks.”

“Three weeks for what?”

“To finish whatever you started.”

I put down the penguin.

“Deal.  And thank you.”

“For what?”

“The kick. Exactly right.”

Pulling on my gray pea coat, I’m ready to leave the coffee shop but I pause to chat with a friend, a successful writer.

Jen has wavy brown hair that she pushes back once before disappearing into her novels and non-fiction – quiet and unaware, she gives off no bothersome hum. She likes to sit in the front window nursing a latte, peering at stacked manuscripts, glasses down her nose and pen in hand.  I’ve told her many times how I envy her lack of laptop, that I can’t even write longhand anymore, that surely real ink fosters creative prose.  She’s prolific in a way I’m not and appears to use her time wisely, far away in good writing, meaningful work.

Three days ago, she told me her secret:  “Stare out the window for an hour.  Then write for five minutes.”

I knew it!