Summer

It's summer. Already the middle of it, really. Remember when you were a kid and summer meant you could do nothing? NOTHING all day long. Okay, not really nothing, but you didn't have an agenda. Or at least I didn't. There were summer day camps sometimes, but there was no schedule. Maybe it's different for kids today, I don't know. But when I was a kid and it was summer, that meant I could read all day long. Book after book after book. That was the life, boy, sitting in a swing outside or curled up in a chair, reading my library books. We'd go the library once a week and gets stacks and stacks of books, as many as I could carry. And really, when I think about it, I still have stacks like that in my house now, of books I want to read. I just don't have the uninterrupted time to read like I did then. And it's hard for me to sit and read during the day, I feel like I have to be up and moving around, doing something productive. I think this is the American disease, feeling like every moment has to be productive. I was talking to M. at work yesterday, and he's from New Zealand. He's lived here three years and wants to go back, says he doesn't like pace of life here, everyone is in a hurry all the time. I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere that isn't like that. I don't know if I could stand it. I like to think I would relax, but sometimes I do like the fast pace of our culture. And other times I don't. Like when I want to sit and read in the middle of the day without feeling like a lazy bum.

Back to summer memories: swimming. We always had a pool when I was growing up, in California and then Arizona. I think it's kind of required if you live in those states. I loved swimming. Swimming in a public pool just isn't the same. And don't get me started on swimming in lakes. Blech, slime! We would play Marco Polo for hours in the pool with our friends in the summer. But even more than that, I remember swimming by myself, and how I loved being underwater, the quiet blue world. And how graceful my body felt moving through the water. I miss having my own pool. But I don't know if you can have an outdoor pool in Minnesota. What happens in the winter when it's freezing? Yeah, that would be a problem. We even had diving boards on our pools when I was little. Jumping into the water over and over again was so much fun. Maybe that's why I loved jumping off that rock so much up in the BWCA this year.