Hotter Than July

I find that summer—particularly summer vacation—is what’s truly wasted on the young. Even in the summers where I worked 20 or 30 hours a week at some fast-food spot or convenience store, I still took the relative freedom of the days for granted. I still got to wake up late, stay out later, fuck around for most of my waking hours, and do it all again. Stripped of what I now appreciate as that exhilarating freedom, summer on the other side of adulthood can leave much to be desired. I don’t so much mind the increase in responsibilities, or the earlier alarm, or the more-constant temptation of sleep. But, like so much nostalgic longing, there’s a feeling that I can’t as easily access. Yet I know that even as you read this, you know that feeling, or something like it, even if our definitions of the feeling aren’t the same. It can be unearthed, sometimes, in a scene: a sunset, the taste of a drink, a waning bonfire, and yes, a song. Something to interrupt what otherwise might as well be a long series of hot days that keep getting hotter by the year.