SUMMER & I'M IN LOVE AGAIN

Each time at this time it's summer again. And yet each time at this time it's slightly different than the last time. The magic and mystery of nature.

If spring is a pretty girl twirling in her yellow gingham dress, summer enters the room like a seductive woman moving in rich greens and reds. Promising wonderful things if only you give yourself over to her.

For youngsters, it's so easy because it's so natural. Their buoyant bodies have been itching for these fat succulent days all winter long. With the sun rising in the morning sky, they're ripping ready to plunge into summer's wide-open arms. So many games to play...pools to swim...trees to climb...heroics to achieve. Why even their ubiquitous keypads and screens can't match what the woman called summer is offering outside.

For adolescents, summer is still spectacular although a bit prickly. It's no longer quite so easy to throw yourself into it with such glorious abandon. Now suddenly you're aware of other eyes you know are watching you, other conversations you're sure are about you. Now games and pools and trees are not simply there; now they are there for you to prove yourself. When did fun become so hard!

For adults, summer is a stunningly mature woman beckoning you. For the male, a call to adventure; for the female, a call to enjoy. Either way, it's a call you feel as you first wake to the crisp green fragrances of the morning outside your bedroom window.

Of course, the lady known as summer takes on slightly different auras in different venues. In the mountain country, she is the intoxicating beauty that explodes from among the slopes and peaks...along the seashore, she is the laughing foam of the waves that splash across the sands beneath your feet...in the scattered towns and villages of the country, she is the perfumes of the fields and the songs of the jaybirds

But in the city, where I come from, summer is the exquisite woman who takes her place among the parks and boulevards and side streets as if she always belonged. But has been reluctantly away for awhile. Now that she's back -- may I insist just for me -- I once more find myself falling desperately in love. Exactly like the moment the curtains open on a play I have long waited to see, I am already a little sad to think her visit will be so short.

Ahh, but what a visit. What a gift. What a chance....