Summer. I fondly remember the summers of my youth. The summers of baseball in the back yard and swimming in the neighbors pool. Lazy afternoons with a pile of books to keep me company under a shady tree. Catching fireflies in the evening and trying to sneak a couple minutes more of playtime before my mother called to us for baths and bed.
Spending time at our cousins and Grandparents, picking strawberries and eating petunias. (Ahh, petunias. I remember their spicy taste and aroma just like it were yesterday.) Choosing up sides with my cousins and racing like madmen around the blocks on bikes competing to win whatever crazy game we had thought up. Walking to the neighborhood grocer with a small account book in hand. I was always amazed they let us walk out with groceries and we never gave them any money. Just the little book of accounts and receipts. So different from the "big" city we lived in.
Getting up at 5 am to get my grandfather off to work and then a short stroll to morning Mass. I used to love sitting on the porch of the Convent, helping the nuns prepare for fall classes. They always gave us holy cards. I had a huge collection. Almost as big as some of my brothers baseball card collections. And just as dear to my heart. I never did find them when we closed up my parents home.
Summer should be a time of pleasure and leisure. Of innocence and play. And especially of boredom. I remember the best parts of summer springing from those two little sentences heard 'round the world in every language. "I'm bored. There's nothing to do!" Those feelings of boredom inspired more creative and spontaneous play than any x-box or iphone ever could.
I remember those summers fondly and yet those summers were filled with boredom. Sweet, and heavy like the foreboding of an afternoon storm. And then the sun shone from our bright faces as we rose to the occasion with another new game to play, craft to make or business to explore. (We all envisioned ourselves as budding young millionaires.) Boredom was the catalyst and our imaginations soared among the stars.
The lazy, crazy, BORING days of summer. I wonder......
