And like a good friend, it becomes harder and harder each
time to part ways.
If we liken the seasons to the stages of our lives, then
summer would represent when we are typically at our strongest, our most robust. We teem with energy and optimism and hope.
As my birthday is in the summer, and many of our
milestones coincide with the anniversary of our birth it follows that many of
my fonder memories lie in those months: getting my driver’s license, buying alcohol
(legally) for the first time, officially becoming an “adult”. By fate or happenstance, it was also during
summer that I experienced many other things for the first time, most of which are
best left to the reader’s imagination.
It will forever evoke memories, of late, late evenings
which last until the morning dew arrives, to warm, embracing breezes and ocean
waves which swell and crash onto sandy beaches.
Of wispy clothing, lightweight and easily donned and shed. Of early Seventies hard rock music emanating from
an 8-track tape player, and skinny-dipping, and lying on blankets in an open
field with a cacophony of crickets in the distance. There was a feeling of security, as if summer
would wrap you in an ethereal blanket of warmth.
And now it’s gone.
For me, summer giving way to autumn is like the barkeep
that comes over and somberly tells you it’s “last call” and you don’t have to
go home but you can’t stay there. But there’s
nowhere else you want to go.
Except back to summer.