Summer Days: Of Ice Cream and Fireflies
I remember late afternoon summer days from long ago when the chimes from the Good Humor truck rang their way up our street. I would race out of our house to get first dibs on my favorite — chip candy crunch, a vanilla ice cream bar covered in chocolate with a milk chocolate interior. (I hated the lame strawberry shortcake.)
I remember sultry summer nights when I lay on my front lawn, dodging mosquitos and watching fireflies, staring at the stars and dreaming of dreamy Stevie Quinn who lived down the street and never once noticed me.
I remember jumping with abandon into the cold, over- chlorinated pool at Blue Rill Day camp, and how the chlorine fizzed up my nose and made me sneeze.
I remember driving up the Palisades Parkway with my family to West Point to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July. I lay down on the velvet, verdant lawn and looked up. To my eight-year-old eyes, it was the most magical spectacle I had ever seen.
I remember playing spin the bottle in Shari Rosen’s basement, praying I’d land on Joey Gates; and buying my first ever piece of makeup—peach Cover Girl lip gloss—at the Nanuet mall on my first day of summer vacation.
I am so grateful for these memories! The stars at night, the annoying mosquitoes that seemed to passionately love me, the fireflies at dusk…
These are the sort of moments Mary Oliver writes about in her poem, “The Summer Day.” A grasshopper landing on her hand. Who created the black bear, the swan, she wonders? Her questioning and her observations are urgent, because none of this lasts, and this noticing—the very wonder of it—becomes for her a prayer. And so she asks:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
I will spend every day for the rest of my life trying to answer that question. Here’s what I know:
I plan to love my family, to love my friends, to write my truth, and to help others write theirs. I plan to fight for our democracy and inspire others to do the same. I plan to take joy in the redwoods outside my window, help my elderly neighbor who often forgets who he is, pay attention to our neighborhood crows’ cacophonous cawing, wash the dishes with less bitching, walk in Tilden Park and smell the sage scent that will forever remind me of California summers. I will play more music. A lot more music. And I will do my best to remember what really matters, and let the rest fall away.
