Freedom
Originally published in Magnolia Journal
When we were kids, summer was the most beautiful word in the English language: two holy syllables brimming with warmth, with anticipation, with possibility. For us, summer brought together the very best of what life had to offer. We knew what school was all about and we accepted that reality the best we could. But summers were different. Summers were an open door, an unwritten story. Summers were sacred. When we were kids, summer meant freedom.
No matter what the calendars say, every school-kid on the planet knows that life truly begins anew on the first day of summer and not the first of January. Of course, summer break meant freedom from the confines of the classroom. But, more importantly, summer gave us the freedom to be who we truly were: a tribe of tree climbing, high diving, scabby-kneed kids. Summer was our reward for sitting still for nine months, it was our chance to roam the town, explore the woods, and terrorize the neighborhood with misguided water balloons. Summer was our natural habitat—our birthright—and it was the duty of our youth to make the most of it. So, we drank in all the freedom that we could, we soaked it up, we basked in every second of daylight and, when it got dark, we begged our moms to let us stay out ‘just a little longer.’ When she put her hands on her hips and nodded her ascent, we were back out through the screen door—off to chase our friends through the violet dusk, to grasp at summer skies and trap a bit of starlight in borrowed Mason jars.
Looking back, many of the details from those freewheeling summer days now blur together, the sharp edges of memory worn smooth over time. But the essential, sensual memories remain. Those summers smelled like sunscreen and chlorine. They tasted like watermelon, ice cold—just out of the fridge—cut into wedges the size of Volkswagens. Like wild strawberries. Like an armload of wild cherries, eaten one by one, ‘til you felt sick as a dog. And the sound of summer? Well, summer sounded like music through a window: soul songs and sweet songs and bare feet in the street songs. Summer sounded like the tides. Like cicadas in the trees. Like the pop and hiss of Roman Candles slicing the dark. Like explosions of laughter. Those summers sounded like a symphony of bells: bicycle bells and ice cream bells and come-in-for-dinner bells. But never ever school bells.
I wonder what it was that we learned most from those summers? From those early experiences of freedom on the block, at the beach, and at camp? Maybe it was summer that first hinted to us about the passing nature of all things and the irretrievability of lost time. We looked forward to summer all year long and then, before we knew it, it was over. Had we made the most of it? Had we missed out on some fun thing we should have been doing? Maybe it was summer that first helped us to understand, practically, that freedom, like time, is precious, that it is a gift and a privilege.
And maybe these are lessons that summer can still teach us, no matter how old we get? For ninety days a year, all of us are given a great gift named summer. A gift that brings longer days, warmer seas, an abundance of fruits, and a chance to step back from our busy lives, a chance to slow down a bit, to try something new, to go outside and run through a sprinkler with our clothes on—to be free, like when we were kids.