Solstice

I used to gauge how deep I was into the summer by the length of the blacktop I could walk in my bare feet.

And dove into a pool that had barely crested 54-degrees because it was officially opened and I wanted to be the first one in…my pale 10-year old body a mass of shivering ribs and lips the color of the deep-end.

My favorite candy was the candy necklace, and I would eat some bit-parts of it and wear the rest around my neck, the sticky candy leaving tiny smears of sugar and color across my collarbone.

We’d store quarters in our tennis shoes, waiting for Adult Swim, waiting for the clanging of the Good Humor man…he had it good and easy…one stop in front of the pool and he made his killing…push-ups were popular but I didn’t like the way they melted along the cardboard.  Nutty Buddy was my favorite ice cream, the ultimate combination in crunch and chocolate.   My friends and I, tucked on the lawn in front of the pool because we couldn’t bring in food…glancing nervously at the high dive and waiting to go back and fling ourselves off into the bright hot space of summer.

Summer became a convertible, and a row-boat on a lake.  Summer is mentioned in days, not hours as the heat and humidity crawl and cover you in its gauze.  First kisses that tasted like popsicles, sugary and tart and you forgot about the weather.  Your throat tightening as girls in bathing suits pulled off tee-shirts and slid off shorts and walked into waves.  Tanned skin flashing in angles and the dripping of hair as they came close to me, barely sensing the scent of the ocean upon them.  Towels laid over hot black leather seats and the chill of wind on the drive home with the top down.

Summer was the music on a boom box, the music of cicadas, the night-stir of insects.  Blue shades of sprinklers setting off at dusk.  The sky was the color of a creamsicle in the late afternoon.  The hint of sunburn felt like a stolen kiss, unaware, leaving a heat that lingered. 

 

One summer we went to Baja California, where I saw an octopus roll one arm out in a wave and watched my sister scream and never go near the water the entire trip.

Another we drove across America, and saw the Painted Desert National Park at sunset.  The Hoover Dam.  But mostly we were in the car, and we were very hot.

One summer I spent in Airborne School, head-shaved and stuck in a barracks in Georgia.  19 years old and being thrilled to death.  Silver wings and a hope that I never would have to do that again.

One summer I learned on a star-lit night that half the stars we see are dead.  And only now are we able to see their light.  I remember my friend explaining that to me and I was completely speechless.  I remember somebody had set a fire on the beach, and I wondered if anybody in space could see it.

One summer I was lighting fireworks on the beach, big rocket types.  Probably illegal.  And we were drinking, just two kids drinking Lowenbrau because we thought we were refined.  And I lit the biggest rocket we had, maybe two feet high, and I started running…only to look behind and see my friend watching from the launch pad.  And my horror when the rocket went up 50 feet and came straight back down, hitting my friend on the ankle.  He limped home, bitter and mad.

One summer my two best friends in high school were arrested for breaking and entering houses in our neighborhood to steal items to sell for drugs.  And I was away at camp.  And how bittersweet it was because they asked the police to go to my house and assure my parents that I had never done anything, that I had never entered or helped.  And I remember those moments when I knew they were inside a house, and I would go walking. Away, just nonchalantly.  Just not being there.  But knowing what was going on.

One summer at this camp I asked a girl in high school to go out to visit the graveyard, which was the scene for finding a place to make out.  And she said no, and I was sad but I figured I’d find somebody else.  And that night, my friend and I saw her out with another guy.   Heading to the graveyard.  She tried to hide her face, but I knew it was her.

One summer I fell in love.  And in another summer I fell in love again. 

One summer was the perfectly round sun, in a cloudless sky, as we drove away from our wedding, hanging just barely on the ledge of the West.  We were in a classic 1930’s limousine, complete with an old man in a driver’s uniform. 

 

I cannot wait to see what this summer brings.