The summer heat in Richmond clung to everything this August like a second skin, broken only by afternoon thunderstorms that sent Telemachus scurrying to his fortress of solitude (the upstairs bathroom), and Antibes — Lucy's first European stamps in her passport, her delight at the Mediterranean blue (all ten minutes of it before we scurried to shade), her confusion at why Papa kept trying to order things in a language that clearly wasn't working. The wedding was beautiful; the pissaladière was everything I hoped it would be; there was no pastis, but enough Mojitos (apparently a thing!) and spritzes to compensate.

Post-France, the house had an air I would artfully describe as "pleasantly chaotic". Lucy aged a month in a week, as she often does — the ability to climb stairs and (as of this very morning) flush toilets mean that there is no chance to be bored. Still, rituals continue, the smaller the better: bath time splashes, the little hiss of the Moccamaster at dawn, the weight of a snoring corgi across my feet as I write.

September looms. For what feels like the first time all year, I don't end my morning walk flushed and sweaty; the infinite heat is breaking, even slightly. It is almost time to harvest the last of the herbs and the first of the watermelons; we're doing a couple quick trips (Chicago, Seattle) and then, somehow, impossibly, Lucy will turn one year old, marking the end of the fastest and happiest and most mystical year of my life. She will be smiling all day, just as she does now; it is impossible not to smile in kind.

I hope you are well; I hope you are looking forward, as I am, to the changing of the seasons.