I wish it could stay summer forever. The freedom. The laziness. Infinite childhood. I am lucky enough to live in a place where summer lingers on for those of us who just don't belong to the rest of the year. Summer dawdles here like everything else in The South. Sitting with us awhile. Taking its time to say goodbye. Our society pushes us toward orchestration. We plan summer, we work it out just perfectly, and yet my personal favorite memories of my childhood summer were never intentional things. My favorite memory of summer was sitting on our small porch drinking a nice cold glass of sweet tea while my grandmother swept off "the walk." A neighbor might stop by or we might just wave across the yard. There was very little talking. I would swing in between the mature crepe myrtle trunk and out of total boredom shake the limbs for a crepe myrtle bloom shower, thereby making a mess. If we were lucky, we could catch lightening bugs in a Mason jar. It sounds so literary, but it was the best Pinterest idea before there was Pinterest, when we had to use our own imagination to come up with things to do. When only the good ideas rose to the surface and came to fruition. Ideas that we thought up, because it certainly wasn't an adult's job to entertain us. June bugs batting against the screen door sent us in for "the conditioner" and maybe a dip of vanilla ice cream out of a big plastic tub from Kroger. It was painfully boring. That boredom is what sent me north on the Pine Bluff highway straight out of my little town. I'd give anything to sit on that bright green, molded metal chair and hear the sound of a broom on the sidewalk, the lulling swish swash to serenade me back to a simpler, more boring time.
Comments