Summer Breeze

I would have entitled this post something like, "Love is the enchanted dawn to every heart" or "the dawn of romance" or even "to wake at dawn with a winged heart" and then play off on the word dawn and the message of love. But I found those a tiny bit tacky, for lack of a better word. And if you don't know by now I'm not romantically inclined. However, I must take a stab at it and being that Valentine's Day (which I call VD in my head) is tomorrow, I figured why not designate it something a little less gaggy and a little more pop, or at the very least, some kind of feminine product or odor that you'd prefer to smell like. It is VD.

Before I began my first semester of the first year of freshman undergraduate life, I moved into my apartment, shared by one roommate and another along the way, the one before that having moved back to Japan. No, my school did not have dorms, but that's another story.

My female roommate, or rather, apartmentmate, was named, well really, what's in a name? All we need to know is that she was a tad crazy. Wait, that's another story.

I was thrust into this world of independence, which really required no marked change in my life, other than it was in a new place, 200 miles away from what I knew, but I am quite an independent person and it did not bother me one bit. Yes, yes, that's another story or stories, shall I say. In those last few weeks before school began and summer was just at the point where you enjoyed it the most, live my fondest set of memories, of new life and new love. This is where Rich comes in. His parents had just purchased him a brand new car and he came around, dashing knight in shining armor that he is, upon his fiery, green steed and whisked me away.

In total I spent two nights in that apartment, the entire time I "lived" there and one night sleeping inside the warm, and semi comfortable aforementioned steed. Now before you think things I will quickly change the subject with the slightest of hand movements and you wont see how it was done, I can't say or hardly remember, but we would then drive around this new place called "the South Shore" and having shore in its name it's easy to get to a beach. For some mornings in a row, Rich and I found ourselves getting reacquainted.

He and I would walk the beach watching the sun rise, magically, from the depths of the ocean, in perfect harmony, never fearing that one would extinguish the other. After a moment of watching the light show we'd head over to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street from the beach.

In our innocence we'd order plain, toasted, whole wheat bagels and orange juice, believing that it was the butter that would eventually kill us and not the flour and sugar and other carbs. We'd sit in the car and eat to our little hearts' content, talking and watching as the morning walkers and joggers and doggers made their way across our view and into their own scheduled lives.

It was those moments and minutes that made summer an endless time. A time of bagels and granola bars, and experiencing new things. It's what I think of whenever the time comes around for graduations and moving away. In reality, our little honeymoon was only a week long. Rich then had to go back to work and I had to begin my new life as a college freshman, struggling to meet deadlines and do the work, and learning the schedules for buses and trains, and finding out that the Yankees were known as the "evil Empire". That time kept getting further and further away in reality but in my memory I've slept in that car enough to know its contours, consumed a thousand bagels, spotted the beach with our footprints, gotten friendly with the dog walkers and relived each little moment with Rich more times than I can say.


Happy VD all. Try not to get a vd on VD. heh. Be good. I love you all. Especially you.

Me.