I was standing at the kitchen sink washing the dishes and happened to glance out the window at my left where I could see the tops of the hollyhocks and the thought came to me that somehow they looked just right, that now the picture was complete. And then I wondered why I'd thought that. I looked again and then I remembered. It was a moment of not exactly deja vu more of a flashback. A snapshot of a time and place. Nine or ten years old, I was sitting at the table in our breakfast room looking out the window to my left. At the tips of the pink hollyhocks blooming there. And a flood of memories came back to me . . . my Girl Scout uniform, the glass of milk that was never cold enough, the longing for summer and the freedom it brought. . . Almost like Proust and his madeleine.
