Summer Sounds

The winds are blowing, it's heating up in the Kansai region.  Apparently we should be in the rainy season by now, but the weather today was blissfully Mediterranean if a not a little bit atsui.  And it will be atsui again tomorrow, around 31 degrees Celsius (about 88 Fahrenheit).  The frogs are croaking at an incredible volume in the artificially flooded rice paddies, and the crows are increasingly more vocal every morning.  Everyone seems to be celebrating the heat, not least of all casual conversations.  Only a few months ago it was, "Samuine!"  (It's cold, isn't it!) and now "Atsuine!" (It's hot, isn't it!)  It's something upon which we can all agree.  It's my first non-student summer and I still feel the release in my bones.  I hear it all around me.  Relaxing into warmth, the welcoming touch of the air on skin.  Ah it's summer and oh so beautiful!