Summertime... and the living is easy

Ah, summertime.

When I was a kid, summer was the smell of freshly mown grass, listening to baseball on the radio, pounding nails with my dad, carting wheelbarrowsful of overflow zucchini to the neighbors. Kids overran our yard (mom did daycare), so there were always plenty of playmates. We giggled and made god's eyes out of yarn and old popsicle sticks and got grass burn at the end of the slip-n-slide. We bought ice cream from the ice cream man and read lots and lots and lots of books cross-legged in the grass. We went camping with my whole extended family, slathered on sunscreen and got burned anyway, listened to my mom play Peter Paul and Mary on her nylon-string.

In college, camp defined my summers. High energy and teamwork and herding skills and learning campfire songs and playing campfire songs and loving my kids but being glad to see them go at the end of the week... staff training, community, climbing 14ers, Native American reservations, cooking over roaring campfires or tiny Whisperlites, service weeks in the city, houseboating, white-water rafting, high ropes, low ropes, confirmation, trust falls, day hikes, Alphas and Omegas, potscrub! Those were my summers. Full of friends and intensity and relentless FUN.

The summers started to settle down in seminary... I learned how to be a chaplain one summer, which had an intensity all its own. But thankfully there was also much card-playing on the roof and hackey-sacking and pizza-eating and picnicking and general summertime relaxing on the weekends. One summer I spent working furiously-- both to save money for my trip to Europe and to finish my master's thesis. And then, the fruits of my labors: European cities and youth hostels and train travel and beaches and discos and tapas and pastries... ah, summer.

And here I am now, working all summer. For once, not on an academic schedule. For once, having to count my weeks of blissful vacation on one hand. No garden to cultivate, no deck to construct, no children to shepherd, no baseball, no lake, and here, also, this year... no heat! On our run today was the first time I'd worn shorts this season. What's up with that, please? Universe, throw me a bone here! If I have to keep going to work every day, trudging through daily life as though it were... November, or March... could you at least throw a bit of leftover sunshine my way? I am sure that some places have enough to spare. Arizona, got a couple degrees we could borrow?

I miss camping. I miss camp. Maybe I even miss school. But most of all... I miss summer!