Summer Nights 2013

We had the first honest-to-God week of summer last week. Maybe other people have been having weeks of summer earlier, but I go to school in Upstate New York, and winter loosens its grip reluctantly. Last week, my campus suddenly burst into gorgeous blooms, fuschia and lilac and creamy white, blushy pinks and brilliant yellow, and everywhere, green, green, green. It’s like the world just turned itself inside out, in this wash of color. I love when Nature puts on a show, and it’s never more magnificent than in the spring and fall.

The nights warmed, with a breeze full of growing things. I thought I could smell all the lively young things growing. There’s something particular about late spring early summer air–it smells green.

I was in the car with three other girls from my creative non-fiction class, leaning against the passenger door, hair streaming out of the open window like a lot of dark tentacles. We were coming home from a marvelous reading by Cheryl Strayed in Rochester and we’d just had dinner as a class with our wonderful professor. I was full and content. It was a warm night, the kind that begged to be celebrated by dancing in the street or having a bonfire or getting drunk with friends. It was a good night to just celebrate being alive and young.

I nudged my friend with my elbow. “Do you want to drink tonight?”

I’d been working on her since we’d left the restaurant–it was a Wednesday, sure, but we’re also in college, and days of the week tend to not matter as much. I didn’t want to get drunk, but I wanted to to be spontaneous and it was just a good drinking night. I could tell. Her roommate drove us to the gas station after we got back and we blasted “Sail” out the windows and screeched the words out the window, changing into “Cosmic Love” on our way home. We sat in their room and got loose and silly and talked about a multitude of things. K. and I ran outside, onto the big field next to her dorm, to stargaze. It was getting chillier and neither one of us had a coat, but we plopped down on the grass, stretched out and stared for awhile. That field is one of the best places on campus to stargaze–everywhere else is too light. Too protected. You have to be vulnerable to really appreciate stars. Because to look up at something so vast and so infinite, you can’t really feel secure. That’s the beauty of them. We got cold after awhile, and I rolled down the hill, shrieking and laughing. I was wearing a skirt, but I didn’t care. I lay at the bottom, gasping and wheezing as K. rolled down beside me, in a muddle of grass clippings and hair. She walked me partway home later, through the still campus, streetlamps softly glowing and I wandered the rest of the way, incredibly pleased with everything.

Thursday night, another friend in my creative non-fiction class texted me: “Want to drink tonight?” I calculated. The week before finals. Classes were winding down. It was another beautiful summer night. Oh why the hell not. We sat in her room and I got to meet one of her best friends from home and his boyfriend. We had a very English major-y conversation about writing and words and somewhere along the line, two more girls from our class showed up, breathless and exuberant. We walked the hill to another party, where people were sitting on the roof, silhouetted against the stars. Light and music pumped from the open windows, small little yellow squares of life. More people were milling around the driveway, the smell of cigarette smoke thick in the air. I wanted one, but I turned inside instead. The kitchen was small and dirty and somehow perfect, with vintage yellow wallpaper peeling around the light switch and onion peels and a singular sweet potato abandoned on the cutting board. Spices tilted at odd angles from the rusty spice rack and numerous beer bottles and empty boxes scattered the counter and floors. Two boys lifted one of our friends up to peer at the crawlspace above her head; they lifted the ceiling tile off and she peered up, barefoot and glowing.

“It’s like a whole ‘nother world!” she exclaimed, laughing.

I settled on the couch in the living room, not really knowing anyone, but perfectly content to just sit and observe. A boy bowed himself out–it was getting late, 1 am, 2 am?–and blew us a kiss.

“Goodnight. Goodnight world. I’m smitten with the universe.” He bowed with a flourish and took himself out the door. I was enchanted. How lovely that is. What a lovely exit to an evening. Pleasant feelings and a smug sense of contentment permeated the air the way the dogwood trees filled the college Green with their perfume. I decided to leave soon thereafter, popping my head into various doors to say goodbye to the friends that I’d walked with. I wasn’t terribly afraid about walking home by myself. It was a good night. I’d stopped being afraid.

Someone called after me, “Goodbye darlin'”, as I left the house, hands tucked into my pockets, and I beamed. It wasn’t in a creepy, menacing way, but in a way that sincerely wished me a beautiful night, with a degree of tenderness and contentment with the world that made me smile to myself all the way down the tiny street. Whoever had wished me a goodnight was evidently smitten with the universe himself. So was I.

Friday and Saturday followed in more or less the same way. Maybe a little hazy around the edges, a few empty wine bottles, but full of gorgeous people who love the world as much as I do. People who make me smile and inspire me. It was a feel-good week. So I went out four nights in a week. It was worth it. It was all worth it. I didn’t stop smiling all four nights. In four more nights, I’ll be back in my bed at home, and summer will have officially begun.

But I couldn’t have asked for a better start to this summer than last week. Universe, I’m smitten with you too.