Missing summer.
I still remember summer, on the banks of the river Tchfuncte. I remember how funny it sounded when out-of-towners tried to say the name; I remember the dusty yellow of small-town Louisiana and how that dust coated the streets, the buildings, the people, the sky. The dust coated me, a dirty little boy, a wild little brown thing crouched in the grass and watching bees drift in their drunken heaviness between the swollen, nodding white heads of clover with their winking green eyes and soft pink lips.
The world was hard and metallic then; it’s only memory that makes it soft, lending sepia edges to the curving, sterile dome of a cloudless sky. Small towns in summer were still and silent places in which the pant of a dog’s overheated breaths were a roaring, rushing sea and each car that rumbled and clanked its rusty way by was a grinding earthquake, the gears of a great golem, the twisting of a metal god in its sleep. The boats were too faraway to make much noise; louder were the soft plops of fishing lures, the droning muffled-honey speech of sleepy old men leaned back in their chairs with their bellies like the breasting brows of tugboats thrust towards the rivers. They never caught any fish, no matter how many round and gaping mouths popped bubbles on the river’s brown and eddying surface to snatch the bobbing flies from the air.
I never fished; I only watched. I touched the cool green leaves and wiggled my grimy little toes against the grass, caught dragonflies in my fingertips and dreamed. I dreamed of what I thought was a great and wondrous life, an adult world beyond the drowsy golden tableau preserved in honey and amber, the sweet-molasses sluggishness of the South in the mid-eighties. I thought I’d find magic with age; I thought I’d know things wise and serene, things that would in decades down the road find me somewhere other than on a creaking pier, snoring above the soft, wet slapping of the river against the weathered wooden piles.
The world isn’t yellow, now; it’s grey with the soft and creeping light of morning, like fingers of smoke coursing over each tree, each gable, each sidewalk corner and stroking it into the life and light of day. It’s the grey that only a city can be, that color of concrete that smells like cold wet rain, that sharpness and tang of a thousand, a million bodies all breathing the same air and exhaling the potential of a world so great that it could swallow my childhood a thousand times over. I’m still wiggling my toes and watching, bare feet against plush carpet, green grasshopper on the screen outside my window, creeping, stick-thin legs and beady eyes.
I’m still that little boy, and I’ve found no secrets, found no magic. I’ve found instead life, the days that pass until one runs into the other; I’ve found bits of myself, things that in my youth I might not have wished to know. I’ve learned that human traits such as sexuality, gender, race, and politics can strip away your innocence and leave nothing but exhaustion and a fading remnant of hope that one day, somewhere, somehow, you’ll find that quiet wonder again.
And I’ve learned that I have but one secret to give:
I miss those golden summers.
Listen to DR Streaming Radio
January 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m already in an emotional state this morning, but the beauty of your words has really moved me. It amazing how sometimes your prose can transport me to the world you’re describing, can let me feel the grass between my toes and see the sky stretching above me. Thank you.
Good morning, Adri.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Summer, now, is the ticking of a time clock, headaches in a stuffy office, the front door squeaking open and closed, watching sunsets through a veil of monotony. It used to be golden, running barefoot through the backyard to pick raspberries that grew behind the shed, climbing trees, watching reruns of the old Batman TV show as I ate dinner, catching lightning bugs, stretched out on a towel reading Edith Hamilton. I miss those days when all I needed to enjoy summertime was my imagination and a box of costume jewelry. Now summer is just hot, and sweaty, and irritating with tourists.
I’ll never enjoy it again.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Hikaru: ~smiles~ Morning, you. Even if it’s afternoon now.
Anji: Are you so sure it’ll always be like that? Maybe you’ll never have costume jewelry and fireflies again, but one day life will break out of that rut.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Adri,
“a fading remnant of hope that one day, somewhere, somehow, you’ll find that quiet wonder again”
Today I found that quiet wonder, nestled right in the midst of your words. You, my dear, are a powerfully beautiful writer. I was transported by your words, your nostaglic tone, seduced by the imagery, captured by your memories.
I read a lot of blogs, and your writing is always a highlight.
j.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Even in England, summer gets too hot. For me, at least. When we were little, we took the sunlight when we could and got used to the clouds. Summer meant setting up the sprinkler on the lawn and trying to make the slide end up in the paddling pool, except when it rained and we didn’t have to bother with the hose or the paddling pool and had to shelter in the doorways from thunderstorms (I remember the storms more than the sun). Ice-cream was also important. I can still identify an ice-cream van six streets away, which was just long enough to be waiting at the gate and waving if we’d managed to beg some change.
My friends in school would set off on beach holidays, but the beaches we knew were unappealing muddy expanses which never stayed in the extravagent castles we imagined. Sadly, summer was always more disappointment than fulfilment - it never lived up to the ideal, although nostalgia glosses over that part. The holiday destinations are slightly more exotic now, but the outcome is much the same.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
…wow.
And I found the way to get that costume jewelry and capture childhood for just moments at a time - I had kids. Those split seconds of memory making and joy make it worth letting them live when they’re being little shits the other 99% of the time. (grin)
January 15th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
*sigh* Ah yes, Sweet, neglected nostalgia. For me, there are more memories of summer spent in the countryside where the quiet wonder never seems to end. Beauty in its essence, far away from the noise and dread of the concrete jungle.
I found that the people who lived around me then were much more tolerant and kind than the people I meet now.
Summer is beautiful. Your words are beautiful to no end Adri, thank-you for a post that sent me back to my neglected nostalgia of those times ^^
Peace, love and chocolate chip cookie dough!
January 15th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
So pretty =}
Hehe. You made me look for my old pictures. Pictures of good summer days with black sand lake shores and icy mountains…
January 15th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
…how do you say Tchfuncte?
January 16th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Tuh-ch-funk-tuh, sort of.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
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