For a long time now the seasons have been blending into one another- assume this is what happens after one finishes high school or college, and the seasons cease to mark life's passing. But just now, swimming in my parents' pool under the bright summer sun, it hit me: this is summer. This is summer- what all the children wait eagerly for all year, what any child pains for sitting bored and chilled in an over-air-conditioned classroom, staring rapt at the clock, watching the second hand trudge. This. This pool, it's so hot outside that the top few inches of the blue bottomless depths are as scorching hot as the flagstones around them. I try to find a happy medium as I stroke along, sucking in my breath to float along the top so that the icy water five feet down doesn't stretch its tendrils up and get me. Back and forth, along the length of the pool: first a crawl, bobbing up and down for air, then, on the return, a backstroke. Eyes shut, belly button raised up to the sky like they taught me at camp, bright white sun overhead, staining the insides of my eyelids a deep, deep pink.
Naked, secretly, hoping my parents won't be come any time soon from work to find me here, unannouced, floating scrawny and white in the chilly turquiose water, ribs defined like the planks of a ship, each vertebrae visible down my back. My dad likes to call me 'stegosaurus' when i get this thin. Then I make fun of his crooked teeth and it's our special joke.
This is summer, then. This hot sun, these pink rubber sandals, this layered turquoise water and open skylight that lets in the world.
San Diego tomorrow for Comicon- my first time. Tonight I'm packing- nothing but ridiculous costumes and the least sensible shoes I can find. After that it's back to the woods here. I think it'll probably mark the end of all this.
Naked, secretly, hoping my parents won't be come any time soon from work to find me here, unannouced, floating scrawny and white in the chilly turquiose water, ribs defined like the planks of a ship, each vertebrae visible down my back. My dad likes to call me 'stegosaurus' when i get this thin. Then I make fun of his crooked teeth and it's our special joke.
This is summer, then. This hot sun, these pink rubber sandals, this layered turquoise water and open skylight that lets in the world.
San Diego tomorrow for Comicon- my first time. Tonight I'm packing- nothing but ridiculous costumes and the least sensible shoes I can find. After that it's back to the woods here. I think it'll probably mark the end of all this.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
_mike_:
hey where did you go ?!?!
_mike_:
uh oh . . . your secret is out ! ! ! I wont tell anyone though . . . i'm down like that .