Until the Day is Night and Night Becomes the Day

I never thought I'd look back on my college summers as the best summers of my life. At the time, I never would have thought that those brief interludes-- spent working to save money for textbooks and then circling the town, looking for parties after the waitressing shift ended-- would now signify freedom and youth and fun. As if it would all one day be nothing more than a thing of the past.

May and part of June was spent still at the New York City dorm, wrapping up exams and final projects- spending a lot of free time with my college friends. These are particularly blissful memories of walking to the reaches of the city in the sun, getting cold teas from the Japanese tea house, going movie screenings at the college center, hanging out after at Union Square with the skateboarders, talking and talking and talking (about what, I couldn't tell you), sitting on a stone bench at Washington Square Park with the bongo players and the street dancers, and watching the season's last episode of Felicity with my dorm-mates (and crying) before we all packed up to go home.

July and August was spent back home on Long Island, with my "home friends," waiting tables and driving to the beach on my days off.

After the night shift ended, around 12AM or 1, my friend Missy and I would change into the clothes we kept in her car and drive off to the Hamptons clubs where we'd dance until 7AM. Then we'd go home, sleep for a few hours, then wake up in time for our shift to start again in the afternoon.

It was pure insanity. Our parents called us "vampires."

There was one summer I worked the day shift in a coffee shop. I slept when I got home from work- around 6 in the evening, then woke up at around midnight to go out. There were too many nights where I never slept at all, and I watched the sun come up and got that sick, sinking feeling in my stomach at the sound of the first birds chirping and I knew it was time to head back to the foaming static of the cappuccino machine.

We had a group of summer friends-- all waiters and hostesses, all much older than us. It was one of the few times in my life where a group had no ill dynamics. Everyone was out to dance and have fun. They rented a big house together, that became the party house. After the clubs would kick us out, the guys would hang black garbage bags over the windows in the party house, hang Christmas lights and put out some lava lamps and we'd have our own dance party in the living room.

In the hours before our shifts would start, we'd haul our uniforms to the beach in garment bags on the back seats of our cars, and sleep in the sand until it was time to go to work.

They really were endless, those summers. I sort of assumed, though I'm sure I never really thought about it, that all summers would be as carefree and wonderful.

It now reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the movie, The Hours:

"I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then."

I can vividly remember the last night we danced all night. It was 7AM in the biggest club in eastern Long Island, with a deep and wide dance floor- a giant pit of a former factory with a cloud of condensation from sweat above hundreds of bobbing heads, and people dancing on the balcony hanging over the pit. The DJ played his last song of the summer-- Stevie Wonder's As-- 7 minutes of one of the best songs ever written, that counted down the last moments of the last summer of pure nothingness. The club dropped white foam and bubbles from the ceiling and spun the lights joyously. We were singing and dancing like an end-of-summer ritual, sending the beach gods back to their autumn retreats. I remember seeing snapshots of ourselves flash before me, each time the strobe illuminated us. What would we become? It didn't matter. What happened at the end of the summer? It didn't matter. We just turned and turned and turned, with our arms outstretched, swallowing the moment whole.

***

The 5 (million) things I love about summer:

1. Summer nights in the city-- tables go outside, bars spill into the streets, people are dressed up in glittery gauzes and sun dresses and flip flops. The idea of going to see a movie seems a lot less depressing, because when you get out it's alive and the whole city is awake. You can walk home, leisurely and enjoy it. People are happy, subway cars are full of noise and happiness.

2. Letting my hair air dry. As if I were meant to be in such weather all year round. As if being able to walk outside with wet hair signifies some freedom-- I think it does.

3. The beach, the beach, the beach. Scarf around my hair, walking there, plopping down, getting up for some volleyball, a popsicle, knowing the lifeguards, the sounds of little kids playing in the sand, nap in the sun...

4. Running in the sun. Free of thermals, quilted vests, hats and gloves. Sweating as sweating was meant to be.

5. Senses alive. I suddenly want to write and climb rocks and bicycle and paint and sing and dance and do everything as if there's just not enough time. In the winter there seems to be so much time, too much time. I want to visit everyone I haven't seen in ages, I want to over-book myself, plan dinners and parties and make myself a better person. The sun pulls me out of bed and stays out long enough for me to get home safe and still feeling it's energy under my skin. There is nothing-- nothing!-- like a nap after a day spent outdoors. Everything feels different, I can feel everything.