I've got a 2200 Mile Hole in My Heart

Summer.

What does summer mean to you?

As a child, summer meant long hot days at the beach with Hawaiian Tropic glistening off my skinny little arms creating mini-rainbow-like oil slicks as I slid into the cold water of Lake Powell. *
Or splashing down a slip 'n' slide (and leaving the plastic behind resulting in burning Dad's lawn).

It meant corn dogs served up through a greasy trailer window at the traveling carnival held in Babbitt's Trading Center parking lot (where little girls in shorts could convince a leering carni to let them ride for free on the tilt-a-whirl).

It meant lazy afternoons laying in sweet green grass, picking out shapes in the puffy white clouds overhead,
or a red wagon-load of freshly picked library books.

On the rare day of monsoonal rain, it meant splashing in puddles or chasing paper boats as they sped down the gutter towards the drains.

No alarms, or schedules. Black, leather-like feet (from running barefoot all day), may or may not find their way into a sudsy bath before 10.00 pm. Hair may or not be combed before leaving the house and what to wear was simple -- a swimsuit fit every activity.

Maybe it's because I'm older that I don't look forward to summer like I used to. Summer for me now means more hands recreating the chaos I tamed just hours earlier, more muddy footprints on a newly mopped floor and more "I'm hungry"s falling remarkably close to one another.

It means the tower of books that appealed to me enough to add them to my list of "greats to read", will sway in the breeze in my bedroom. No WAY will I be reading with Miss Ky in constant "destructor" mode.

For my husband, it means (as always in the summer) his job is undermanned for the additional summer hours, so no time off to spend with the family and stranger hours than before -- and more frequent scheduling changes.

But I don't think it's just me.

My children, who DO NOT fall into the current trend of over-scheduling, still don't have time to lay in the grass. Summer for them doesn't even start until the 22nd, and then it's only a few short weeks. During that time, 2 will play football (soccer) and three of them will attend an activity day once a week with the local church. But for some reason, we will still be running.
There will be no leather-like feet or bronzed skin. Our library books won't smell of coconut oil, and my children will not know the joy of slipping under the surface of a cool, clear lake.

Summer to me is Lake Powell and it's 2200 miles of shoreline. I miss my lake. I miss my simple childhood.

*photo is by philg@mit.edu. Living overseas, my photos of Lake Powell are stored.