From the Vault: I Hear Loud People (July 3, 2007)

The essence of summer is all around me. I love the feeling of sitting in front of the window at my desk with the fan on overhead and a cool night breeze coming in to say "hello". There are people setting off fireworks, the shrill symphony plays off the houses surrounding my own. The people on the street in cars are driving a little too fast with the music a little too loud. My legs are peeling from a very uncomfortable sunburn that I carelessly allowed myself to obtain as I was foolishly under the impression that my pasty white skin could handle the sun reflecting from waves of the Pacific Ocean. Don't care, it was entirely worth it for the whole wonderful day spent at the beach a couple thousand miles away.
There is a part of me that would gladly build a fort of sand and saltwater and stay there forever. That is the part of me that can remember when the hardest decision I had to make was who I would ride bikes with after school or who's house the slumber party would be at that weekend. The part of me that wanted to play with my mom's kitchen utensils in the dirt until it was dark. The part of me that when I was entitled to be childish...couldn't wait to grow up.
That is the part of me that longs for everything to be simple in a way that it seems it can never be.
As if something like the smell of the ocean could sustain you all by itself.