Midsummer Daydreams

It’s summertime. The air is moist and slightly sticky, and you can feel the mosquito bites swelling up on your legs, your shoulders, the backs of your hands. This is why you prefer autumn, the time where everything is golden brown and the mornings are crisp and chilly, and you can finally find an excuse to wear your favorite sweater and buy hot cocoa powder. But now, you wear your worn-down flip-flops as you wade through tall grass, the serrated edges brush against your calves as your ankles grow stained with mud. You follow the paths made by the ones who visited before you, because your father says that somewhere on the other side there’s a little lake, guarded from the harsh tides of the ocean. You sigh and trudge along, because it’s hot and all you want to do is lie down. The rustle of leaves and footsteps are the only music, besides the crashing waves.

The lake is the color of stained glass, crystal clear and tinted a deep blue-green. The waters are steeped with sunlight, and you can see every stone and branch that sits on its floor. There are small cliffs on one side and a wall of rock on the other. You climb down a narrow, steep boulder wall, white-knuckle gripping the rock as you search for a way down, your feet unsteady in your flimsy flip-flops. You inch your way down into a small cove with coal-dark sand and sea smooth pebbles that form the shore of the lake, glistening in the midday sun. You stand at the edge of the shore, watch the tides come lapping at your feet. It’s cold, like the first sip of an icy drink that stings your tongue and freezes your teeth. You look among the stones and pebbles, picking up a pearly white piece of coral that had washed up onto the rocky beach. It was small and bumpy, small enough to fit in the pocket of your jean shorts. There are other people around the lake, some swimming in a little cave off to the side, others lying down near the water. You thought it would be like the other lakes you’d been to before, huge jewel-toned pools set against the backdrop of mountains covered in autumn trees. But this one was different, small and almost a pond, a bubble of midsummer daydreams.

You want more than anything to dive in and revel in the turquoise waters. But you’re wearing jean shorts and a Colorado t-shirt, and you know that the ride home will be so uncomfortable if your clothes are wet. You settle with standing knee-deep in the lake and staring into its limpid depths. You reach into your pocket, but you realize that you left your earbuds at home, so instead you begin to sing your favorite song beneath your breath. The blown out syllables glide away with the wind, and your voice goes flat when you try to sing high. You wade into the shallow parts of the lake, grazing your fingertips on the stones that lie on the bottom. Rooting around the pebbles, you look for a smooth, flat rock, because your father says those are the best for skipping. All the ones you find are too bumpy, but you hand him one anyway and watch as he holds it in his left palm. When he throws it, it skips once, twice, three times across the mirror-like surface of the lake before it sinks with a splash. In that summer heat, it feels like the world is pressing against you, and you are sandwiched between the sea and the sky. Behind you is the horizon, such a large swath of it that you can almost see it beginning to curve. The mountains are before you, huge and covered with a blanket of leafy green trees, almost like moss on a boulder. You are like a tree, rooted into the ground, and not even the strongest wind can knock you down. You feel powerful, and you close your eyes and let the sunlight sink into your eyelids, crowning you with the golden sphere so often painted around the heads of gods. Someone calls your name behind you, and there is your father, holding a perfect stone. It is dark grey and flat, rendered smooth and round by the ocean’s waves. He places it in your hand and teaches you how to throw.