Untethered, together
Despite the long light of June days, my family shot hoops deep into the night in our driveway.
After dinner, after the robins and doves had gone to roost, we’d turn on the lamppost and the garage light to make out the orange basketball hoop and play our games. We’d shoot Around the World – one shot each at seven spots around the basket and back – and sets of 10 free throws. Both teachers, my parents had no early alarms set on summer mornings.
Why We Wrote This
Floating in a salty sea, mesmerized by darting fish. Catching, and releasing, fireflies into a starless sky. Rambling along a river teeming with snapping turtles and walleyes. As these four writers share in heartfelt reflections, the most beloved childhood summer memories are often steeped in nature.
My dad and brother kept their focus throughout the night while Mom’s and my attention drifted when the fireflies blinked in the field behind the house – or when bats swooped low, banking after mosquitoes that buzzed around our ears.
We were a family who spent most of our free time together, but those late nights shooting hoops were uncommonly special as we reveled in the gift of summer. Untethered from our school-year routines, we enjoyed a shared freedom that took years for me to appreciate. It was a carefree window of time my brother and I thought would last forever.
Still, despite my own early alarms that now wake me throughout the summer, a warm evening seldom passes when I don’t hear the music of a ball swishing through a net or bouncing on concrete when darkness falls. It never fails to take me back.
– Noah Davis
The night we lit up the sky
I grew up in a densely populated, industrial New Jersey city. Summer nights were magical. My friends and I ran the streets with abandon. But above our heads, something was missing: stars. There was simply too much air pollution to let any but the brightest wink through. But no matter. We chased fireflies – our stars on Earth. In the stultifying heat, we captured them in jelly jars, vying to see who could catch the most. Finally, tuckered out from our exertions, the five or six of us buddies retreated to a dark corner of my backyard to admire our handiwork. We set the jars down and squatted in a circle, the light of fireflies illuminating our transfixed faces. One boy, Charlie, asked, “What do we do now?”
I gazed up into the starless night, and the answer was clear. We jumped to our feet, jars of fireflies in hand. “One, two, three!” I called, and in synchrony, we removed the lids and watched as legions of fireflies filled the air above our heads.
For a little while, at least, we had our starry sky.
– Robert Klose
My saltwater self
For a kid who thrived on the routine of school, I found summer vacation unbearably long.
But there was one thing I looked forward to each summer: our annual beach trip. It didn’t matter where we went. I knew I would be floating face down in the water, watching hermit crabs skitter and small fishes dart, trailing the line of half-buried shells. The sun would beat on my back, but the cool water would keep me from noticing. There would be salt on my lips and salt crusting on my skin. At night, the rhythm of the waves would lull me to sleep.
Once, I remember being suspended in clear-as-glass water, watching sunlight ripple across the fine sand. In that moment of pure awe, I wasn’t striving or performing – I simply was. Everything fell away but light, water, breath, and the steady beat of being.
Now, I live with my three children by a river. The river lacks the sea’s salty sting, but it brings me closer to those beach summers. Every day, I watch my children jump off rocks and explore. My inner child is glad to see their joy isn’t rationed. Something in the river current echoes my saltwater self – the one who knew she was enough.
– Sherilyn Siy
Childhood in the wild
In “The Practice of the Wild,” poet and essayist Gary Snyder writes, “The childhood landscape is learned on foot, and a map is inscribed in the mind. …You can almost totally recall the place you walked, played, biked, swam.”
For me and my childhood friends, nearly 50 years ago now, that landscape was along the Chenango River in New York state’s Southern Tier. It was a short walk down the hill from where we lived to reach the river’s bottomland and well-worn trails through the woods.
Beside this beautiful water is where we spent most summer days, aimless and wandering.
It was where we first encountered owls and snapping turtles, caught walleyes, hung up a rope swing, felt river stones under our bare feet, and discovered the glory of a gravel bar. We started learning birdcalls, watched for shapes in the clouds, and noticed the light at sunset. We fell silent at the majesty of fireflies drifting through trees.
It was the first land that became a companion.
I lost touch with those childhood friends, but I have kept an affinity for rivers and streams, quiet coves, and the shade of trees. I am thrilled by a footpath through the woods, acknowledge the wildflowers beside it, and wonder where the wild blackberry bushes are. The carefree summer days of my youth are gone, but the landscape of them is forever etched in my mind.
– Jim Meddleton
