“Do you have any food?”
“Huh? Oh. Not really.”
“You have an apple.”
“It’s one of those Fiji apples. Nothing special.”
“Hey.”
“What.”
“Lime juice.”
“Are you… are you putting lime juice on a piece of apple?”
“….. Dude. You gotta try this. It’s like crack, but fruit.”
“You are such a weirdo.”
“Hush, heathen. The genius is enjoying her apple.”
And so a new snack was born, courtesy of Shishi and her impeccable 1:45 A.M. appetite. Now, I can’t even look at a Fiji apple without wondering where the lime juice is. But that apple, which we shared while sitting on my kitchen floor, was a sign of change because, not long after that, I did the most adventurous and teenage-rebel-y thing I’ve ever done. Shishi and I snuck out of the house into the quiet, unassuming, apartment-adorned street, counted to three, and screamed at the top of our lungs: “SLEEP TIGHT, YA MORONS!!!”
Apples doused in lime juice and tributes to Holden Caulfield are the sweetest nuggets of a summer vacation; but, as of late, I’ve also found them to be the rarest. It is hardly uncommon knowledge that I often prefer the bustle of the school year to the dull incessancy of June, July, and August, but I also find it difficult to imagine a life without a three-month vacation between periods of intense work and emotional turmoil. Although I know I have years of college ahead of me, all of which require some kind of vacation period, I often feel like I’m going to be slingshotted into a lifestyle that will only give me a week or two of vacation a year… and that seems more horrifying than anything.
Perhaps the teen’s inevitable summer boredom is just that: inevitable. We spend our summers equally bored and equally amused because, unless you are literally a hermit, you’re bound to go on some exciting adventures with your friends. In fact, during the school year, all you seem to remember of summer is its excitement and the freedom that it gives you; you forget all about the listlessness, about the number of times you tweeted “help I’m so bored” in the hope that one of your friends would come swooping in to save you. Perhaps a real summer vacation requires its joy to coexist with its ennui since it seems like one is never without the other. This also seems to be true of the school year because, if you’re in the right school, you spend half your time “dying” from your workload and the other half eating Nutella and making bad chemistry or biology jokes.
We all have different ways of enjoying our summer vacations since “vacation” — like hundreds of other things — means different things for different people. Perhaps your version of a vacation is sitting on Tumblr for eight hours a day while cuddling your cat and eating an obscene amount of chips and salsa; or, perhaps your vacation means going to a sleep-away camp you’ve been attending since you were three and seeing friends who have known you for a decade. It’s all relative, and the school year is the same way.
But, this “one-never-without-the-other” mentality allows for a more subtle glance into what summer can give us, besides a well-deserved break. Without our three-month vacation and the sporadic pauses in between, we would never want to go back to school; and, without school, we would never want to go back to summer. Perhaps this system even gives us a further glimpse into our education: Summer teaches us how to manage our time, shows us the value of sitting at a desk for eight hours a day, and, of course, alleviates our unnecessary stress. As a result, summer can be just as beneficial as school, and it heightens our self-awareness and our awareness of the environment in which we must thrive.
I guess the point of all this is that I’m pretty ridiculous when it comes to the concept of summer since I can be just as contrary. Now that I’m getting older, I’m faced with having a lot more freedom and responsibility than I’m used to, and grappling with that truth can be difficult. But, as silly as it may seem, my remaining summer vacations give me the opportunity to become more comfortable with my independence, which is something I am deeply thankful for.
Dear reader, enjoy your summer, whether it be sitting in front of the air conditioner and not moving for a few hours or chewing through that booklist of yours. Channel Holden Caulfield, and savor your limey apples, and you’ll have something to talk about when September rolls around. This Latin nerd must fly away to her land of kilts, castles, and ducks, but she’d like to leave you with a parting gift of Catullus’s most ineffable and contrary poem:
I love and I hate. Why do I do that, you might ask?
I do not know, but I feel that it is happening, and I am burned.
(Cat. 85)
cover photo courtesy of Shishi Shomloo