When I was a little girl I used to lye on my trampoline what seemed to be all summer eating saltines, apples with cinnamon and sugar on them, and drinking strawberry juice. I would watch the clouds pass by in familiar shaped objects like bunnies and balloons. I loved those blue skies and sunny days. Summer felt so long and so rewarding.
Now when I look up at the sky in short intervals through windows of class rooms or rushed walks to the next place I have to go to the clouds are stratus-shaped or cumulonimbus clouds. On rare occasions they are shaped like kidneys or femurs, but never bunnies or balloons...
I don't wish it back. I can't quite put a finger on it, but this is the summer that I define my childhood summers as. It might be the independence I felt in being the boss of my day. I could eat what I wanted, wear clothes three times in a row, dig holes with my dog, climb trees, catch toads, or just lye on the trampoline and watch clouds pass by in great fascination. It could possibly be that time made no difference in my day. I had no meetings to attend, no planes to catch, or work to go to. Or it might have been because there was no school. I didn't have to read any chapters in my Medical Nutrition Therapy book, or study for an exam on Monday, or meet hard deadlines for papers.
I was free.
