Unpeeling Summer 2008......Perhaps.....Perhaps

You know, I have always kind of known even before each summer holiday starts but certainly before each one has been over, what "flavour" this year's summer vacation is going to have. I know, "flavour" for the season is kind of like crazy talk but basically I mean what the feel for the summer holiday is going to be. I like to think that by some method my brain collects the sights, smells, people I am around and events I am participating in and amalgamates all of these into what I understand as the flavour of each summer. I was trying to think whether I had a specific analogy in mind for each summer before this and the flavour that it has represented - you know, like summer 2002 was like a strawberry. A ripe one that you bite into for your first experience of strawberry ever - but I can't think of any simple flavours to liken other summers to. The best way I can do it is to provide a little book subtitle to every one of the summers I have had since coming to the states. Maybe a little paragraph as well to explicate further.....

2002 - The Summer of Dazed Confusion
As you no doubt can guess, my first summer here. That was one amazing summer. The air was filled with the sense of green, damp, home and screen. Green for Greensboro, NC where I stayed until school started. I guess its clear that I am from the savanna of Africa when I come to the states in June and I am struck just how green everything looks. The damp is of course pertaining to humidity. If this summer was Hamlet, then the humidity of the south is Polonious - irritating, maddening yet integral to the way things have to be until we can finally be done with him and see him die already. Home. The smell of my sister's apartment, the smell of my late night/early morning snacks of pancakes, bologna, baked chicken and Graham Crackers all intermingled by my wake-up time for Yu-Gi-OH and Jackie Chan Adventures on the WB beginning at 1500hrs. Screen here refers to both small and big. Lots of TV and movies watched. In the two months that was my first summer, I totaled 17 movies watched. Pale in comparison to future endeavours but those first 17 all have a special place in my heart.

2003 - The Summer of Pretentious Knowledge
Just like second year of high school. The deluded assurance that comes from thinking just because you've survived a year somewhere, you know how everything works. The sense of Denimed damp, bloated parties and tennis and WW2 fanaticism. I showered and wore jeans to so many humid summer night movies in Greensboro that denimed damp is my summer. So many get togethers with family and friends of family. Always proud of the confidence that had grown in my by now except until I realised that I had eaten too much and I was self-conscious of nothing save how big my stomach felt as it stuck to my clothing, damp of course. The summer of 12hr tennis games with friends and family, after having been on the computers all morning at UNCG campus killing my brother for being a black-coated Nazi with a sub-machine gun trying to hide in a small bathroom in the room I am about to enter. SMG this, Bats.

2004 - The Summer of the Lethe. No exagerations when I say I really don't remember anything about this year, let alone the summer. Yay spider-man 2!!

2005 - The Summer of Scholastic Flavour. Academic Advancement and the Jade Empire and the Library. In Pulaski, Speech class mini-mester and overall coming to terms with the fact that Pulaski feels just like home. Interspersed with zealous over-indulgence with Microsoft X-box's Jade Empire. Lots of work in the Library. Lot's of pleasant distractions that Summer - Fall Creek Falls, visiting friends and brother, etc.

2006 - The Summer of Bitter-Sweet Achievement and close-related Confusion. Graduation. Applications for grad schools and the scholarship applications that need follow these. Need I say more?

2007 - The Summer of Irresponsible Glee and Paradoxical non-Achievement. First Summer at work.....and then, like mercies growing on the wings of angels, spontaneous two month holiday. Good but for stress and almost $3 000 into my savings. Still, one can't deny the glee of visiting and being visited by friends.

2008 - ??????

And I guess that's the point of this whole blog today, is it not? I can't figure out this summer's flavour. By the 16th of April every year, I have figured out the summer's flavour and it has not happened this time. I don't know if it will or if it won't. A part of me wants to go ahead and label this the Summer of Being Screwed Over and Masochistic Expectation but the optimist in me wants to hold out for a better feeling for the summer. Maybe it's cause I know I am in transition and that towards the end of the summer I will be gone. Maybe it's become clear to my subconscious that I have been seeping deeper and deeper into madness with each summer and I am now trying to bring myself back to the same and stop this foolish summer flavour thing. Who knows. Tell me what your Summer flavours have been and what you hope you will have for this year. You never know, you might get your wish.....