Dear Summer,
I remembered you today. It was so warm and beautiful, it’s as if you and late Spring took a wrong turn on your rotation and ended up on these city streets two months early. Fine by me; it’s perfect. I had to resist the urge to take off my shoes and walk barefoot through the dead grass in the park.
I couldn’t help but start thinking those dangerous thoughts about you, too. You know, ones like sprinklers running in the cool grass, flip flops skimming the hot blacktop, warm nights on the porch. Those things that make sticking it out through Winter worth it. But that’s how you are. No matter when you leave and no matter how abruptly you do it, I always want you back.
Your influence doesn’t stop there. You make me remember all the things about all the times you were here before. You make me remember walking around the neighborhood with friends all day, drinking iced tea. You make me remember standing in the gutter after a rain storm and finding pictures in your sky. In just a breath of your warm air I’m back on the banana seat of my old bike, rushing down that huge hill, “no hands!” With just a glance at my shadow on the sidewalk I’m on the edge of that lake, fully immersed in July Fourth fireworks, sunburn and teenage love. How do you do it? You have such power.
My love for you, however, doesn’t make me forget how well I know you. I know you’re not really here, not now. I know you’re just teasing me like a postcard from a far-off place. I know you just want me to long for you even more than I already do. You’re like that.
Still, like this time and all others, I will forgive you. I will forgive the frigid Winter you left me with and the way you never stay long enough. Before I know it, you’ll have me back in your grasp, absorbing every ray of sunshine, making excuses to be with you when I should be in the office. You know I will, because I always miss you and I can never get enough. I’m like that.
Until we meet again…