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The promise of August Midsummer, when waves rise from scalding sidewalks and spill on to the beaches’ burning sands, is a perfect time for introspection and renewal. It marks the summer’s center, and sets so many upon the annual break called vacation. It affords the opportunity to sit, relax and ponder the state, and hope, of our lives. It’s not like the other annual markers of time: New Year’s when we are pressed into making life-altering resolutions, or Christmas and Chanukah that whip us into states of physical and emotional frenzy. Instead, it is a long, deep breath; a spiritual repast to nourish the heart and fill the soul, a chance to sit and enjoy the little pleasures of life. Mostly, I think of children at this time of year. I delight in their freedom from classroom learning. I love to watch them at twilight, running barefoot through the grass, catching fireflies. I listen for the sound of music from the ice cream truck, and find joy in the faces of children playing at the park. It is a time too, filled with warm remembrances. I recall the adventures of my own childhood, mostly the smells and sounds and feelings whose sum total make me what I am today. What can conjure up a memory better than the sight of a carousel or the smell of a hot dog sizzling on the barbecue? How powerful the chorus of crickets performing on a hot summer’s night, or the sound of warm raindrops falling outside my bedroom window? With those memories come the faces of people in my life, some gone now. I remember long drives on summer Sundays with my aunt and uncle and cousins. We’d all pile into their old Chevy, and without seat belts, head for parts unknown. It was only as an adult that I learned that our only destination during those trips was to get to know each other, and share a few moments in time. Memories of the beach are always linked to my father. We’d make the long drive from Brooklyn to Riis Park, with my mother packing a lunch and staying home, and out of the sun. As I got older, I’d take the short train ride to Coney Island with my siblings at a time when it was safe to afford children those wonderful freedoms. Undoubtedly, the life we lead today is very different. The only role drugs played in our lives back then was to cure the sick, and the closest thing we had to terrorists were the aliens in a script of Captain Video. We lived with one car in the family, if we were lucky, and sat in front of the only television for blocks around—a 13-inch black and white model that my very progressive grandmother and grandfather believed we had to have because it was going to change the future. Midsummer is good time to think of those things and so many others. She spills, hot and august, on the shifting sands of our lives, gently reminding us of what is important—and moving on again.
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