For a ten year old, the last day of school is a “don’t look back day.” Cleaning out my desk, turning in books, saying, “TTFN” to my classmates, is simply a sleep walking exercise. Long summer days and dreamy summer nights are beckoning me and my feet have been pointing out the door for weeks. With the first warm wind, my Gypsy blood awakened with a breathless feeling of expectation. In summer, my imagination refuses to be contained in walls; not school walls, not house walls, not church walls. I scorn shoes and dresses and frilly affectations of my girlhood to get eye-level with the miniature forest that is my front lawn or scale the tallest tree to sense the view of one who can fly. I shed civilization to explore the infinite possibilities between earth and sky.
And there are only three months of summer. How will there possibly be enough time for exploring my world? I am itching to shed this cinderblock cell called a classroom. The summer calls and promises me hot days spent in cool swimming pools. Cool nights spent lying on a blanket watching the Big Dipper spill its contents. Every day will be a play day, riding bikes, building forts and playing football with the big kids. Just before the rains come, there will be lazy hours of naming cloud sculptures or learning the patience of a spider spinning her web or finding that prized piece of white quartz with the most flecks of mica glittering in the sunlight. Perhaps someone new in the neighborhood will find his or her way to the street party that gathers each evening, when spontaneous games of ditch or dodge ball erupt. My parents, along with many of the neighbors, will sit after dinner on porch chairs to watch the sunset and carelessly referee the games, which means I…get to stay out later.
With my father in the Air Force, each year I look forward to a 30 day summer adventure. The destination is always the same, my mother’s family in New Jersey, but how we get there is always different. Dad has a moral imperative against driving the same road twice. Mother is a history buff and Dad thinks nothing of driving 20 miles out of our way to see a “hysterical…er…historical” marker. Dad, who is a great sport, never gets us lost, he just accidentally takes another “scenic route.” We take many “scenic routes” and they are often the most memorable.
Before I was five, I had been in every state but Alaska and Hawaii and so, at ten, I am a seasoned traveler. I have a million pictures in my head of places I have been. A fenced pasture filled with horses, a country lane bowered by ancient trees, a rocky sea cliff with water the color translucent turquoise. Many of these images were just glimpses of passing scenery viewed through sleepy eyes that followed the semi-conscious question, “Where are we?” So, I have no idea where these places are or even whether they were entirely real. In summer, the line between dreams and reality becomes blurred. This year I will see something new, something unexpected and add new pictures to my mental scrapbook. It is a big country. It’s a big world.
And all of it begins with the ring of the last bell. Five… four…three…two…Freedom!
End