She's a woman so fine, I may never try to find her
For the good memories of what we had before
They should never be changed, for they're all that I'll take with me
Now I've gambled and lost my summer wages
This is not my favourite part of summer. This is my coffee, tea, shaved ice and popsicle part of summer. The part of headaches and sunscreen rashes and short one-sentence responses. The waiting-it-out, sticky-thighed, want to shave my head part of summer. The part where I try to get anything done involving movement before ten in the morning. The part where my hair and skin dry out so much from the endless floating in the pool trying to sleep.
I sit on the porch most of the time simply because the north side of the house is shady and cool. The trees are my best friend and the ocean fades from attention until fall. When I have had enough I jump into the sea but it's not as cold as the Atlantic nor is there ever sufficient wind for me. I grew up on an unforgiving coast, an unforgiving girl and summers hold so much emotional weight you don't even know the half of it.
Every dirt road, every faded curtain flapping against a broken sunroom window, every greasy knuckle on a midway ride. Every loaded glance from a stranger, every sugary strand of cotton candy, every lost-earring, torn-wallet, sweaty-jeaned, worn flannel moment of summer is to be endured and not forgotten.
Every strum on a warped and ancient acoustic guitar (the Martin). Every sigh as the fan breeze touches flesh, every kiss deferring anything more as it's just too warm. Every wish becomes polar, every sunbeam cursed in favour of one from the moon.
I lift the hem of my dress up over my knees and attention shifts. I run my hand over the back of my neck and everything's different and yet everything is the same.
The cats languish just out of the light that plays on the floor, little wisps of fluff and whiskers rising up in a cloud as they settle for their long litha naps.
I had some work done on my Jeep last week. Henry's birthday is coming. It looks like it will fall on the hottest day of the year but I have had twenty-three summers already to figure out how to make a big chocolate cake that won't melt and how to host his entire universe for his favourite dinner without perishing in the punishing heat and by the end of next week my youngest child will be twenty-four years old and just about the same age I was when I started thinking about becoming a mom. Maybe. Some day. And I'm here on the other side of it now and Henry and Ruth are my absolute pride and joy and the heat doesn't matter. Time passing is a marvel. Another summer and everyone is good. The bills are paid. There is food in the fridge and I still ration the air conditioning like someone who has been meaningfully, sustainingly poor, and maybe the boys laugh while I cry but I doubt those things about me will ever change and I don't think they should.
I tied a peach-coloured ribbon on the grill of the big fan in the front porch. There's a ceiling fan there but it makes noise that drives me crazy so I brought out a big copper table fan and set it on the floor. The ribbon blows out straight and makes me think of The Great Brain and Catcher in the Rye. Or maybe On the Banks of Plum Creek and anything and everything by Kurt Vonnegut, which would take me the better part of thirty more years to enjoy, if honesty is what you like.
Seven more Mondays until September. I wonder if I'll make it or if I'll melt instead. I wonder if this headache will ever leave me, like the people leave the beaches when fall routine calls them all away and it's all mine again.
I wonder if anyone else ever read and still reads all over vastly different age demographics. Sometimes I pick up Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck and sit and read it. It's not a long read but it was Henry's favourite back when he depended on me for everything. I always tried to make their lives magical and I hope they feel like I succeeded but I don't dare ask. I'm still making up for the parts that decidedly were not magical and that's the curse and the blessing of being a mom, I suppose.
Lochlan is asleep in a chair across from me. Feet flat on the floor, sleeves rolled up, head thrown back, red hair cascading in curls off his shoulders, he doesn't seem to mind the heat or the cold. He is level and strong and doesn't find wealth and different from poverty, truth be told. He doesn't mark the passage of time and he's never had a problem with the way Kurt Vonnegut writes and he doesn't care if there's other people at the beach or fan noise or a melted birthday cake or a weird look from a stranger and that's why he will never truly understand my relationship with summer and I suppose I will never understand his either. We've had forty-seven entire summers together give or take and it still feels new.