Summertime

I once read that we, as humans, tend to resonate to the season in which we were born. Maybe that's why I love summer. I love the heat (I'm still in New Jersey writing this) and I love the pace. Despite having two grown children who are no longer in school, I still equate summer with that long, dreamy, seemingly endless expanse of time known as summer vacation.

Summertime still feels easier, brighter, full of optimism. It's a time redolent of lying on the beach at the shore (the Jersey shore), oily with sunscreen, sand sticking to you like breadcrumbs on piece of battered chicken, and the soothing sound of waves crashing, and children laughing.

Besides the desire to visit my family, maybe my need to recreate and relive the tactile sensations of summer is what drives me east each year?

I'm still in New Jersey at the moment, and it has been in the 80's and will hit 90's tomorrow. When it gets dark, I love stepping outside into the night to feel the lingering warmth from earlier in the day. Somehow, hot, humid air in the evening seems all the more special since evenings in the Pacific Northwest often require a jacket, even in June.

I hope parents remember to allow their children the time for summer memories and daydreams. Compared to the highly regimented (play dates?) and organized schedules most children appear to have these days, my childhood summers were slothful, languorous, and mostly without any particular direction. In hindsight, these were the characteristics of summer that enabled me to remember it so vividly.

Catch a wave!

A day at Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey