| | I love summer with every part of my body. Hiking for two weeks through the Appalachian Mountains makes my arms and legs ache with the joy of being used to their limit. Chicago jazz clubs in the middle of the night fill my nostrils with the smell of hundreds of cigarette butts and countless years of raspy voices permeating the walls with their musical stories. Long evenings in thick summer air with friends tickle my skin with a thousand air kisses. I am alive! I am loved! I am real!
And now I'm up in the northwoods of Wisconsin, staying with my aunts, a friend, and my two sweet cousins. We are six women ranging in age from five to fifty, equally enjoying the sun-soaked dock that boldly suspends us yards out into the lake. Each day we bring a tray of bulging sandwiches and juicy watermellon out and nibble on our day-long lunch while the sun melts the ice in our glasses. In between comments about the weather, reflections on the previous days, and musings about the future, we devour cheap paperbacks--the kind Dan Brown and Danielle Steel would have smiled to know we secretly read when there's not much else to think about.
Each day I've woken up early and resolved to go for a run and quickly rolled over and fallen asleep. Each day I've sat on the floor for hours playing "Dora the Explorer" with my cousins. Each day I've spent long hours at the dinner table picking at a basket of chicken nuggets for those under ten and a sipping one of the glasses of wine for those over 21. This is the life.
School seems so long ago and so far away. Like a fairy tale. Except it seems that I am living the fairy tale.
|
| | Posted 6/15/2006 12:38 PM - 42 Views - 2 eProps - 2 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
