el Verano
Heat. Open garage doors. Dusty cars and trucks inside them. A corner lot with a tall pine tree in the front yard. Crepe myrtles lining a bedroom window in the side yard.
I grew up in Spring, Texas, north of Houston. Two-four-one-three-oh Lone Elm St. I had to memorize the address before my first day of kindergarten, which I remember. Texas summers are hot. Houston summers are hell. The humidity makes your lungs feel like they're swimming.
We had a tree in the back yard with wide happily green foliage and a bark that peeled off to reveal a white trunk that, after some Google research, I am pretty sure was an American sycamore.
Now I'm a little bit grown up living on North Padre Island just south of Corpus with a short-term boyfriend and another girl for our roommate, and I don't trust either one of them. But I'm convinced neither one will affect my life in the long-term, and for now the situation is convenient and enjoyable. I work thirty minutes away up Mustang Island in Port Aransas at a condominium as a front desk clerk. My job is great.
Every night I close, I walk to the swimming pools and lock their gates. When I step outside of the office and lock the door, the wind from the gulf throws my hair every which way because it doesn't care that I want to look nice for my boyfriend when I walk through the door at our house later. It reminds me that when you're at the beach, or the river, or the lake, or the ranch, or wherever you go to escape, it doesn't matter if you have a dinner reservation in two hours- your boots are going to have to get mud on them. Your hair is going to poof up from the humidity. Your cut-offs will be stiff with salt water all evening even if you don't have a chance to change before whatever your next activity is. It doesn't matter what you have to do later, nature is telling you to care about now. It's freeing. You can, SHOULD, go on an adventure. It is going to be worth it.
That's what summer is. That's why everyone feels rejuvenated in the hottest months of the year. The sound of cicadas crowding the atmosphere isn't overwhelming, it's inspiring. The glow of lightning bugs isn't creepy, but warm, inviting. The perfume of honeysuckle and jasmine is intoxicating, romantic. It's a time when you let yourself live the way you want to, fairy tales aren't so far-fetched anymore, and the entire earth is calling out to you.
When I was still living in Spring (we moved to Birmingham the summer I turned 9), my mother wanted us out of the house during the day. We had a trampoline, a club house, a swing set, a kiddie pool. The street on the side of our house ended in a cul-de-sac, and we would have skate and foot races around the circle and back to the stop sign. I learned to roller blade by the street lamp in my front yard. I used it as a starting point and gradually got further and further down the road away from it.
We had juice and water and milk to drink, sodas were rarely kept in the house. We were to ask permission before getting something to eat outside of meal times, but we were allowed to have all the fruits and vegetables that we wanted. Instead of letting us lie on the Berber under the air conditioning vents, my mother was forever shoving us out the door, saying "Go play!" Swim team practice most mornings of the week, and meets at six a.m. on Saturdays. When we won, the whole team would go to lunch. My brother and I always had blue and red ribbons to bring home.
Every year the mosquitos just loved me. I also suffer from an acute lack of coordination, so there were always scrapes, cuts, scabs, bruises on my legs and arms. That's when I learned the healing powers of Neosporin and aloe vera (snapped off of the giant plant growing in our yard), which I still firmly believe in and employ to this day. But as a result, my legs are scarred in random places, and I have no stories remembered to tell about them, for I was always up and running again once the Band-Aid was in place.
Recently, I went to a bonfire on the beach around 11 at night. A bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes came with me. Something about a fire gives people the sense of community and safety that is so lacking these days. My boyfriend told me it had to do with instinct, from when cavemen used it as warmth, protection, a gathering place. But bonfires are also just plain fun when surrounded by people whose company you enjoy and who share the same feeling with you. It felt like summer. On my way to my car, I stubbed the shit out of my left pinky toe, said "ouch" and kept walking. That resilience reminds me of childhood, which always reminds me of summertime.
Summer is when you grow up, but stay young.
I absolutely love it.
I grew up in Spring, Texas, north of Houston. Two-four-one-three-oh Lone Elm St. I had to memorize the address before my first day of kindergarten, which I remember. Texas summers are hot. Houston summers are hell. The humidity makes your lungs feel like they're swimming.
We had a tree in the back yard with wide happily green foliage and a bark that peeled off to reveal a white trunk that, after some Google research, I am pretty sure was an American sycamore.
Now I'm a little bit grown up living on North Padre Island just south of Corpus with a short-term boyfriend and another girl for our roommate, and I don't trust either one of them. But I'm convinced neither one will affect my life in the long-term, and for now the situation is convenient and enjoyable. I work thirty minutes away up Mustang Island in Port Aransas at a condominium as a front desk clerk. My job is great.
Every night I close, I walk to the swimming pools and lock their gates. When I step outside of the office and lock the door, the wind from the gulf throws my hair every which way because it doesn't care that I want to look nice for my boyfriend when I walk through the door at our house later. It reminds me that when you're at the beach, or the river, or the lake, or the ranch, or wherever you go to escape, it doesn't matter if you have a dinner reservation in two hours- your boots are going to have to get mud on them. Your hair is going to poof up from the humidity. Your cut-offs will be stiff with salt water all evening even if you don't have a chance to change before whatever your next activity is. It doesn't matter what you have to do later, nature is telling you to care about now. It's freeing. You can, SHOULD, go on an adventure. It is going to be worth it.
That's what summer is. That's why everyone feels rejuvenated in the hottest months of the year. The sound of cicadas crowding the atmosphere isn't overwhelming, it's inspiring. The glow of lightning bugs isn't creepy, but warm, inviting. The perfume of honeysuckle and jasmine is intoxicating, romantic. It's a time when you let yourself live the way you want to, fairy tales aren't so far-fetched anymore, and the entire earth is calling out to you.
When I was still living in Spring (we moved to Birmingham the summer I turned 9), my mother wanted us out of the house during the day. We had a trampoline, a club house, a swing set, a kiddie pool. The street on the side of our house ended in a cul-de-sac, and we would have skate and foot races around the circle and back to the stop sign. I learned to roller blade by the street lamp in my front yard. I used it as a starting point and gradually got further and further down the road away from it.
We had juice and water and milk to drink, sodas were rarely kept in the house. We were to ask permission before getting something to eat outside of meal times, but we were allowed to have all the fruits and vegetables that we wanted. Instead of letting us lie on the Berber under the air conditioning vents, my mother was forever shoving us out the door, saying "Go play!" Swim team practice most mornings of the week, and meets at six a.m. on Saturdays. When we won, the whole team would go to lunch. My brother and I always had blue and red ribbons to bring home.
Every year the mosquitos just loved me. I also suffer from an acute lack of coordination, so there were always scrapes, cuts, scabs, bruises on my legs and arms. That's when I learned the healing powers of Neosporin and aloe vera (snapped off of the giant plant growing in our yard), which I still firmly believe in and employ to this day. But as a result, my legs are scarred in random places, and I have no stories remembered to tell about them, for I was always up and running again once the Band-Aid was in place.
Recently, I went to a bonfire on the beach around 11 at night. A bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes came with me. Something about a fire gives people the sense of community and safety that is so lacking these days. My boyfriend told me it had to do with instinct, from when cavemen used it as warmth, protection, a gathering place. But bonfires are also just plain fun when surrounded by people whose company you enjoy and who share the same feeling with you. It felt like summer. On my way to my car, I stubbed the shit out of my left pinky toe, said "ouch" and kept walking. That resilience reminds me of childhood, which always reminds me of summertime.
Summer is when you grow up, but stay young.
I absolutely love it.