I liked it best as weightless as possible. Floating with nostrils just above water, and letting my eyes slide along the lunar landscape, I forgot about the early mornings and long afternoons for a bit. The sun set quickly, and wall lights lit up the cobalt top tile. The slow jets moved my makeshift raft close enough for me to see the copper streaks that forked through the tile in odd patterns. I lifted a ladybug onto a leaf and set it at arm’s length back from the edge. 

It was still far too hot during the day, but I didn’t have any windows anymore. The passing daylight hours didn’t have much significance until Friday. Workday patterns alternated between bearable and terrible, with inexplicable, sweeping flights of hope. 

I walked half a block to the pool, marveling in the ability to leave the rest of the day behind for twenty minutes. An inflatable dolphin hovered in the shallow end, its right eye watching as I leaned back on two pool noodles far enough to submerge the top of my head. I lay that way for a few minutes, long enough to encourage a slight disorientation and invite a curved panoramic view of the night sky. I turned in slow circles, and felt the slight chill in the night air, which made me happy for autumn, but a little sad for the end of a summer that sifted through our fingers faster than we could grasp.