Friday afternoons hold the promise of happiness in the making. Like candy in a jar, weekends have a way to make me feel tingly with anticipation, wishing that I could consume them at once. And yet, the promise is almost the sweetest part. Already, when Thursday night rolls around, I feel a gentle wave of dopamine engulf my frontal lobe and for a moment I am eight years old and life is truly good.
Growing up, summer was just that. A seemingly endless row of Fridays with Sunday night light-years away. I loved the gentle pulse of the days as they glided by. The air laden with whispers from summers past. Leaves rustling, sparrows whistling, the lingering heat of a summer day still in the air. I no longer live anywhere near where I used to spend my childhood summers, but I carry the essence of those serene months with me.
Funny, though, that when we lived in Costa Rica, I struggled with the reality of an endless summer. It actually annoyed me. Just like an all-you-can-eat deal, everything soon tasted the same. Gone was the exhilaration of the first bees buzzing through my room and bouncing off the windows, the first morning warm enough to put on a sleeveless dress, the suddenly long days, and short, balmy nights.
And in a way, the further away from the equator one ventures, the more intense summer tends to get. It is the all consuming feeling of being alive again, after a time of reclusive hibernation, that seems to resurface like a whale out of the depth of the sea.
I make it a point, these days, to spend at least part of the summer as far North as possible, without having gnats and other blood suckers get the best of me.
1 comment:
The seasons are funny that way and you've concisely pinned it down. It still amazes me to recall how impatient I used to grow, waiting for, God forbid, the school year to actully begin again after perpetual weekend-nights ran together, the grass being greener even in the schoolyard.
Somehow, it's way too easy to take it all for granted. And, still you'll tell your kids, "Cherish it," and still they'll laugh, like I did, at how old-fashioned it sounds but how true it is: here and gone before we know it.
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