Summer keeps us young

Summer is my favorite time. I like to say my favorite time is whichever time we’re in, but I know it’s a lie. Summer is it, the be-all end-all of seasons.

June, July and August are when everybody comes out to play. We don’t have Summer vacation as adults, not like we once did, but we take them anyway. We plan trips. We countdown to our toes in the sand. When we can’t go anywhere, we treat our afternoons and evenings like mini-vacations. We spend nights by the pool or go for impromptu runs after work even though we already got one in before work. We go out with friends more often, because the nights when we can sip a glass of wine by a rooftop bar while warm air passes over us are finite.

Minor league baseball is back in season and even though most of us will make it to October without ever knowing the Drive’s record, we’ll still enjoy Thursday nights and Sunday evenings at the ballpark where we congregate with thousands of our friends and neighbors to worship the great American pastimes of baseball and beer.

Sunday afternoons take on a new meaning in Summer. In the colder months we wrap ourselves up on the couch to watch tv and hope Monday comes just a little slower this time.

When it warms up, we treat Sundays like the hours are meant to be savored. We’re outside, we’re moving, we’re grilling out. We’re making memories. And even though Monday is way too close, we’re pretending we have no idea.

Summer is my favorite for the way kids move freely through their days without any worries of homework or grades or whether the next test will be hard.

It’s my favorite for the ways we remember it as kids – the times we spent biking around town with the neighborhood kids, the wads of big league chew we held in our cheeks at the softball field, the nerves up on the blocks at the city swim meet.

Summer lets us remain young for a bit — we go to concerts and swing in hammocks, we lay by the pool with our favorite people. Summer is when everything that has to be done just slows down for a while, because Summer is when we remember how to focus on the moment.