Long Game Summer

I was born in August, two days more than halfway through the month on the 17th. If I was in charge, I'd have picked June, but it doesn't matter. I will always be summer's child.

People who know me laugh sometimes that I choose to live in the Upper Midwest, where summers are short and quickly over. They don't know how I start counting summer in mid May and go straight through the start of October, no matter what the weather may be doing.  But they are right about summers being short.

Still, Midwestern summers are truly glorious because the rain makes the ground bloom with every sort of northern flower and the greens are as lush as anything Hawaii can offer. Houses too, look better in the dusk and porch light in June, when the lengthening day is almost over--but not quite.

Summer is a writer's season, because it knows the long game. Summer will wait as patiently as a cat for its shining moment and then shine as if it's going to forever.  It sings of lakes and swims and overpowering heat that promises to sweep you off your feet into a hammock.

Summer also brings pool parties and sandals, long grass, running rivers, secret talks and rekindled friendships you might think were gone but are not. It brings you time to walk at night and think of what you want to say, twice, again, a dozen times. It lets you play, and writers need to play more than anything.

The long game extends to baseball and golf, barbecues and sleeveless dresses. Cupcakes at birthday parties and ice cream cones after long, meandering walks.

Summer in the city. Summer in the country. I'll take it anywhere, and I will always remember it. As the longest day of the year approaches, I hold out my arms to catch it, smell and taste it, drink it in. Summer will never disappoint, no matter how long you have to wait for it.

Summer knows it's coming. And it knows, somehow, I'm here. When it does come, it will have my childhood memories wrapped inside it, unraveling them around  my shoulders and ears. Nights when I didn't want to go to bed and told myself stories. Mornings when the sun seemed like a new friend and brought me outside to dance.

Summer knows I'm waiting for it. Freckles, lawn mowers, iced coffee and waterfalls. It knows how the first summer of my engagement, neighbors complained that my fiance and I were kissing on the beach. It knows we still go out there periodically to kiss, neighbors or no.

The longest game will never stop playing. All we have to do is say yes to it, like Molly Bloom.

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