the last days of summer.

Lately we have been busy trying to ride out these last days of summer by doing... um, well- summery things. The same thing seems to happen every year around late-July. I realize that the hot months are nearly spent and that I haven't relished those ubiquitous summer activities enough before the 'back to school' ads begin bombarding us from left and right. I believe this whole 'summer thing' is possibly more a state of mind or idea, than it is an actual, palpable thing. It is a Sam Cooke song. It is fuzzy childhood memories of riding my bike around the neighborhood into the twilight with cicadas singing all around. It is fireflies, and camping, and floating lazily down a river with friends. It is that CountryTime lemonade ad- kids launching themselves off of rope swings into a creek while reeds bend in slow motion and old people sip lemonade and smile beneath jelly jar lanterns. It is a sort of myth I annually seek to obtain, a sort of old-fashioned sentiment I relish and long for. A few more weeks left to go... don't be surprised if I call some of you over to sit around a jerry-rigged rope swing next to our muddy marsh that doesn't actually swing anywhere. But will we be the kids launching off, or the old people sitting around smiling at one another?