Throwback Thursday: Summertime

"And so with the sunshine, I had the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." F. Scott Fitzgerald

Summer is a beautiful thing.
Maybe, to me, the most beautiful thing in the world.
I know they say things about how summer wouldn't be as appreciated if we didn't go through winter, & maybe they are right, but winter can kiss my you-know-what.
 

Summer is everything.

Summer is staying out past your bedtime to catch fireflies.
Summer is catching June bugs then tying a little floss around one of their scrawny legs and flying him around the yard like a pet.
Summer is a bead of sweat that travels from your neck, between your shoulder blades, down to the dip in your lower back, where it settles.
Summer is the sound of cicada's, who have long dreamt of serenading us.

Summer is stargazing on a blanket of cool, sweet smelling grass.
Summer is chalk drawings on ancient sidewalks that have been disrupted by the roots of the ancient Live Oaks.
Summer is a crown made from clover.
Summer is the smell of Magnolia's & Boxwood's & Honeysuckle.

Summer is the golden smear of the setting sun as it melts silently into the lake.
Summer is the color green. For the grass & the trees & the leaves on the Hydrangeas.
Summer is a lemonade stand, an ice cream truck, & a snow cone cart.  De-licious.
Summer is a wet dog that snuck up behind you to shake off the lake water.

Summer is bedtime with the windows open.
Summer is an adrenaline pumping flip, long fall, & sharp splash into the cold water of the rock quarry.
Summer is heat lighting that illuminates the sky beyond the mountains.
Summer is never knowing exactly what day it is.

Summer is a ride in a truck bed with your best friends, everyone's hair whipping around & tangling together.
Summer is weightless, like floating peacefully in the pool.
Summer is spitting watermelon seeds farther than your brother.
Summer is that one song.

Summer is a little itchy, between the bug bites & the occasional bout of poison ivy.
Summer is that life force that hums deep inside of you continually whispering "outside...outside...outside".
Summer is hot enough to see. Heat moving across the asphalt like waves upon the shore.
Summer is a good book on a front porch during an afternoon rain.

Summer is a kiss that is salty & sweet & just long enough to turn you inside out.
Summer is laughter, always traveling on the breeze from somewhere close by.
Summer is bare feet, black from the day's adventures.
Summer is bike races & skinned knees. 

Summer is a low rumble of thunder that sends Little Leaguers back to the dug out.
Summer is fishin' in the dark & in the day & in the twilight.
Summer is forgetting to eat lunch because your kickball game went into extra innings.
Summer is suncreen & tan lines.

Summer is fingers & lips stained purple from eating blackberries out of your pail when Momma wasn't looking.
Summer is shucking corn on the back porch.
Summer is hour after hour of cornhole in the front yard.
Summer is a PB&J in the tree house.

Summer is magic.
Summer is life giving.
Summer is everything.