Summer

 I don’t like the summer anymore. I have an autoimmune disorder that makes it difficult for my body to regulate my temperature. Sure it’s a fun party game when every nurse ever starts to wonder why all of their thermometers are broken or if….. I’m a vampire….it hovers somewhere between 95-97.4…. Unless I’m in the heat and then it shoots up and that’s just inconvenient at best.

But! I used to love the summer. ( in Washington) the days were hot but not hot as hell and the nights were cool and smelled like freshly mowed grass, pine trees and earth and I miss that dearly. Finally coming to the realization that I’ll likely never be back there again. No reason to be now that my father has passed. 

I was laying in bed trying to heave the heaviness off, deep breathing and traveling back in time. I heard taps being played yesterday and every time I ever hear it I’m thrust back into a cabin in the woods at Camp Sweyolakan on Lake Coeur d’Alene Idaho and we’re like 10 years old talking about periods and eating toothpaste.

I hated camp. It was a Campfire Camp and I was always sent on a different week than my pack. That’s why I didn’t like it. I was shy. Not knowing anyone, on what I thought was an island, makes for lonely times. With the exception of that…. I thought that the camp was magical. It was lush with dense green trees and ferns and mushrooms. It smelled like lake and earth and oxygen mixed with possibility and adventure. We’d make jewelry from pine needles and glittery pine cones. We’d hunt for fairies in the forest and find the gifts they’d left for us. I still love fairies and my YM’s middle name is fairy in French. Taps would send us to bed at night and wake us in the morning. The slow lapping of tiny waves against the beach was soothing and mixed with the sunrise it was exactly what heaven must feel like.

As I got older summer was spent at the lake and “cruising” Riverside and drinking Olde English (crrraaapp!) and riding bikes for miles and miles and camping in my front yard and kick the can. It was foster kids and Rob and his brother and their friends all piled onto my deck talking for hours. A good sized pack of 12 of us. I was the only girl and I liked it that way. I was the crush, the advice giver, the tomboy football player, the one on top of the shoulders for chicken wrestling, up for a swimming race across the lake, bike tricks, jumping, fort building, rock fights. I was tossed around and beloved. I loved sumner. 

That turned to walking out at night from a hot kitchen to a cool summers night. Car rides, motorcycle rides, golf courses, late nights that melted into dawn, then baseball games under the lights, clubs. Sand volleyball, darts/hearts/spades! Frisbee and boom boxes, Doug’s 70’s rock was a requirement, Greenland, Heather…..

Babies, the Oregon Coast, picnics , bbq’s, sprinklers, beers on the stairs, Doug’s children and mine, poker nights, strollers and birthday parties….

I have no o idea why I wanted to jot this down. A happy little island of memories. 

Tracy