Summer Solstice

A breeze blows through the window and I smell sprinkler water evaporating off of sun-baked sidewalk. It is a summer smell. It reminds me of Sunday afternoons when I was a little girl and it is comforting and lonesome at the same time.

Maybe because it is finally summer now, maybe because it is hot and the pavement bakes and the people sweat and the sun warms the grass, maybe that is why I walk and walk and walk and feel like I am home.

Today I stepped off the A train at the 59th Street station and moved along the platform as I waited for a downtown D train and I thought, "This subway station smells like home." And then I thought, "Why does this station smell like home?"

The lines around home as I knew it for my first twenty-something years are beginning to blur. Sometimes I walk past an elementary school and think, "that is where my children will go to school," and then I remember where I am. Sometimes I walk through my apartment and imagine how we could squeeze a nursery in and then I remember where I am. Sometimes I think I'll just swing by my parent's house to say hello and then I remember where I am. Sometimes I walk through the city and my heart swells with so much love that I can't imagine ever leaving and in the very next moment a blade of fear cuts my heart because, dear god, what if I never leave?

Maybe because it is finally summer now, maybe because the sun heats my skin and beats my eyes, maybe because night jasmine blooms and clouds trail shadows on the grass, maybe that is why I walk and walk and walk and feel like I am home.