Welcoming Summer. Issue #6

No matter the noise of adults, I am still and forever a young child running out of school and into the arms of Summer. 

   ...wading pools, hot beach sands, bay beach dips, freshly cut lawns, dripping ice cream cones, insect choruses, frogs croaking, sizzling barbecues, cool concrete shop floors, firework displays, frigid ice chests, salt-air scents, shore-line waves, thunderstorms shattering the sky, sprinklers ticking, suntan lotions, sunburned arms, lobster and butter, sandy barefeet, blinding sunlight, lake breeze softness, forest shade, bike bells, bats whacking, humid stillness, swallows returning, osprey fishing, air conditioners humming, butterfly dances, fire-pit smores, flowering gardens, firefly courtships, boat wakes, sailboat sails, canoe paddles, screen-porch naps, roadtrip stops and endless days....

 

There are fewer summers ahead than behind me now. And humans who were a vital part of my youthful Long Beach Island summers, are long gone. My grandmother, the biggest absence. But I am surrounded by love and loved ones in 2022. And so I find myself ripe with anticipation for the season ahead, to create Summer days which fill us all up with the stuff of future nostalgia. The only days I will waste in this endeavor are the ones I plan to be wasted...

Stories from the Snap Shack Issue 6 (June 27, 2022)