Summer

It really should not come as a surprise. After all, it happens every year. Regardless of the events in our lives, regardless of the happiness and pains, the dramas and the boredom, we move forward in time. Once again, summer is almost at an end.

It is different now than when I was a child. When I was young I remember spending a lifetime on summer mornings staring at the grass in our yard, listening to the buzz of the cicadas and watching the ants move onto the sidewalk. I was waiting for it to warm up a little more so I could drop myself into the pool in the backyard and float the day away.

As an adult I have moved further south and no longer wait for the summer day to warm. By nine in the morning the temperature is well into the eighties, and some days it is actually too hot to go outside for any reason. Instead of watching grass and ants I watch my six year old play with Legos or superheroes, waiting for the inevitable cry of boredom after all toys destroy each other.

The difference, I think, between now and then, is that my childhood summers were languid. Time moved in a circuitous route and staring at the grass was just as good as riding my bike. Now, however, if I dared to stare at the grass, I feel lazy. It is my son's turn to be unhurried, to enjoy the stretch of the season. For me, it seems there is too much to get done, too many time constraints on my day. There is laundry and meals, there is grocery shopping and work, there are any number of adult necessities to pull me away from the reality of summer time.

Maybe tonight I’ll go outside and look for ants. Or enjoy the night sky. After I make dinner.