Summer Memories

Summer break seems to continuously pull me into the past. The feel of the hot air combining with everyday objects pulls me into the past. I like to think that it's a way of remembering the good times, and carrying that forth into my family's life.

One sweltering afternoon I was driving my kids home from a summer camp and a work truck passed me. It stood out because there was a five gallon, orange, cooler in the back. My dad had one of those water coolers when he did survey work, and that water cooler seemed to be present in all of my early memories from baseball games, to home construction, to days at Saline Lake.

The same thing happens when I'm applying sun screen to my children before we go to the pool. I'm transported back to being a child and impatiently waiting for my mother to rub in the sun screen across my face. I switch back and forth between the present and the past.

The present me knows I'm channeling the energy of my mother from thirty years ago, as I smile at the crinkled up noses of my children, who are impatiently waiting for me to be finished applying the sunscreen to them. The past me feels the frustration of them as they can hardly stand still long enough for me to protect their sweet little faces.

These are just two examples, but, at any given time during summer break, memories just flow to me. Most poignantly are when I'm doing the same things with my children that my mother did with me and my brother. I flow in and out of the present and I use those experiences from my past to encourage me to create fun summer memories for my children. Maybe they'll experience these happy memories thirty years from now.