You and Me and the Summertime

Only because I work in an air-conditioned office and my apartment has an ambient temperature of about 50 degrees can I say that for about the first minute after I go outside does that blast of summer heat feel good.

It embodies everything that I love about summer. The slight laziness that everyone feels entitled to because there's no school, it's too hot to do a lot outside that doesn't involve a water park. The feeling of the hot sun shining on you. The sensation that the beach is right around the corner.

It's really the beach that I think of when I feel that summer heat. And when I say "the beach" I am thinking of only one place which embodies all that those words mean to me: Sunset Beach, North Carolina. I don't feel like a year has actually happened until I get to Sunset with my family. This year will be the first year in a very long time that I won't be in attendance for the whole thing, or possibly even any of it. And I'm starting to realize just how sad that makes me. The salty smell and the opressive humidity that are instantly okay as soon as I cross the beach access over onto the sand of this most hallowed ground. One of Sunset's many blessings is its ever-changing but always fun tidepools and the width of the beach itself that makes it great for all kinds of sports and games. Most of my cousins are now married and have had children. I take joy at my fortune in having seen some of them get their first look at the ocean, catch their first fish, and take their first boat ride.

I have watched my family grow up and mature and it's been interesting comparing the changes in myself from year to year. It's a benchmark. It happens at the same time every year, we go to the same place, with the same people, but every year it's great. With so many constants, the changes are much easier to notice. It makes it all the more apparent how the dynamic has changed with the addition of the 3rd generation of kids.

I will miss that so much this year. But at least I have that feeling of summer. And everytime the heats blasts me in the face when I walk out the door, I will smell the salty air, I will hear my younger cousins laughing, I will think of balmy nights walking to the pier, long waits to get over the drawbridge, boat rides, scavenger hunts, storms rolling in over the bay, and most of all I will think of my totally awesome, dynamic, growing family.