My Hyperbolic Tribute to Summer
I'm sitting on a beach chair on our patio, and I suddenly look up from my book and notice that the sky is very, very blue. Strange. It's impossibly blue. It is so blue that it looks fabricated, like the ceilings in casinos in Las Vegas, and contrasting against the impossibly blue sky is a row of swaying palm trees.
Then, for the first time ever, it hits me that we live in a vacation spot. People from the land of ice somewhere northeast of us come here wearing Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts, carrying cameras around their necks. They travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see Shamu or play on the beach or go to the zoo.
What did I do in a past life that deemed me worthy to be born here? In my next life (were I an actual believer in reincarnation), I shall be born in Siberia as punishment for the way I have taken Southern California for granted. I sit inside and read. I shun the sunshine.
I ought to be walking bare-footed around my best friend's cul de sac. We ought to be selling lemonade out of her pull-along wagon, offering to wash cars for money, swimming in the pool. I wish we were little again so we could do all the summery things, and I wouldn't be self-conscious. We'd take long walks singing songs from Anastasia or Mulan, pretending we were hanging out with the fellows from *N Sync or that we're members of a stranded wagon train.
Summer means sloppy joes and watermelon, sleeping until you can't sleep anymore and staying up so late that you feel sick. Summer is birds and sunburns and sleeping with the windows open. It is spending so much time with your friends that you can't stand them anymore and harboring irrational infatuations with the boy down the street - feeding the crush with whispers and giggles until you're unable to walk past his house without feeling a little light-headed. It's driving home from the beach in the back of your mom's van, feeling sandy and warm with the heat of the sun radiating from your skin. It's lying in the dark, on an inflatable mattress, talking to your best friend about how you wish you were a puppeteer, circus performer, pop singer, etc.
Summer is also that sharp, sinking feeling you get when the signs go up for back-to-school sales, when you get letters in the mail about class schedules, when you realize you haven't completed your summer reading. Summer is also the way you suddenly don't care about the boy down the street when the boy waiting in line at Six Flags says hello. Summer is a long, agonizing drive - the drive to Disneyland that couldn't possibly take only an hour and a half.
Even so, summer makes me sad. I spend months wishing it was cold, wishing that we could light a log in the fireplace, wishing I could wear scarves and sweaters.
I don't deserve to live here.
And that is why I'm moving to Antarctica.
The End.
Then, for the first time ever, it hits me that we live in a vacation spot. People from the land of ice somewhere northeast of us come here wearing Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts, carrying cameras around their necks. They travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see Shamu or play on the beach or go to the zoo.
What did I do in a past life that deemed me worthy to be born here? In my next life (were I an actual believer in reincarnation), I shall be born in Siberia as punishment for the way I have taken Southern California for granted. I sit inside and read. I shun the sunshine.
I ought to be walking bare-footed around my best friend's cul de sac. We ought to be selling lemonade out of her pull-along wagon, offering to wash cars for money, swimming in the pool. I wish we were little again so we could do all the summery things, and I wouldn't be self-conscious. We'd take long walks singing songs from Anastasia or Mulan, pretending we were hanging out with the fellows from *N Sync or that we're members of a stranded wagon train.
Summer means sloppy joes and watermelon, sleeping until you can't sleep anymore and staying up so late that you feel sick. Summer is birds and sunburns and sleeping with the windows open. It is spending so much time with your friends that you can't stand them anymore and harboring irrational infatuations with the boy down the street - feeding the crush with whispers and giggles until you're unable to walk past his house without feeling a little light-headed. It's driving home from the beach in the back of your mom's van, feeling sandy and warm with the heat of the sun radiating from your skin. It's lying in the dark, on an inflatable mattress, talking to your best friend about how you wish you were a puppeteer, circus performer, pop singer, etc.
Summer is also that sharp, sinking feeling you get when the signs go up for back-to-school sales, when you get letters in the mail about class schedules, when you realize you haven't completed your summer reading. Summer is also the way you suddenly don't care about the boy down the street when the boy waiting in line at Six Flags says hello. Summer is a long, agonizing drive - the drive to Disneyland that couldn't possibly take only an hour and a half.
Even so, summer makes me sad. I spend months wishing it was cold, wishing that we could light a log in the fireplace, wishing I could wear scarves and sweaters.
I don't deserve to live here.
And that is why I'm moving to Antarctica.
The End.
posted by Sarah at 7:11 PM
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