The last few days have been quite hot. Well into the triple digits!I have mentioned about how I dislike/hate summer a few times, and I tried to recall if I have always felt this way, and the answer is No. I only started hating the summer after moving to a desert. In fact, I can recall the first time I realised that the summer can include a lot of suckage.
This story takes place in a more innocent time, back when I was a care-free 12-year-old. My mother decided to let me take a summer trip to see my grandma. My aunt also got this idea, and my cousins were off to summer vacation with grandma as well! Now, looking back at it all, I am fairly certain our parents just wanted to get rid of us, so they wouldn’t have to deal with us while we were out of school for the summer. Whatever the case, we were all going to spend the summer with Granny, who just so happened to be living in a desert. In fact, she was living in the same desert that I now call home.
Now, you have to remember, I was from a cool surfing community called “Ventura”, and ended up finding myself in this desert wasteland. It wasn’t enjoyable at all, although my Grandma did try to show us a good time. She took us fishing at a local “Lake”. We however weren’t as interested in fishing as grandma apparently was, and decided to go swimming instead of fishing. We frolicked in the warm waters. We splished and we splashed each other. The merriment continued for hours, because obviously it was much more cooler in the water, than it was outside the water, even if the water was warmed up.
Eventually our Grandma decided that was enough, she had caught her fish, and was tired of sitting around near the lake, so she gathered us all up, piled us all into the car, and drove back to her home. The trip was over an hours drive, and the sweltering heat inside the car, the fish my grandma had managed to catch was quickly beginning to smell. So, the drive wasn’t overly enjoyable, it was hot, and smelled of heated fish.
That however, is not the worst part of this tale.
You see, after arriving back at my grandmas place, we decided to play outside. See, Grandma didn’t have a Television, so the only thing that would hold our interest, was running around in her front yard and tackling each other. So, that’s what we did, right up until it hurt too much to move. Turned out, all that time in the water, had caused a sunburn, the playing outside probably didn’t help either.
Eventually Nightfall fell across the desert, and brought with it slightly cooler temperatures. However, despite the slight coolness, my cousins and I were all unable to sleep that night. The pain from the sunburns was unbearable. The next morning was even worse. The sunburns had evolved into giant water filled blisters. Giant blisters that spread across our entire back. Mine was the worst.
Sure, eventually the blisters went away, the sunburns faded and a nice tan appeared. However the whole event was miserable, and set the mood for the rest of the summer vacation. After a few weeks, we were all relieved to be going home. Not because we were glad to be away from grandma, in fact she was the only thing we were going to miss. We however were glad to be out of the desert, and to be returning to the cool embrace of Ventura. We were looking forward to breathing in the salty air, to soaking our feet in the foamy waves, to squish the wet sand of the beach between our toes. Yea, it was good to be back.
Unfortunately the joy didn’t last long, because 2 years later my mother decided to move closer to my grandma, So we found ourselves leaving the beach community behind forever, and moving out to an unforgiving and uncaring desert. A place where ever summer was like a brief moment in hell. A few months later, my aunt moved as well, bringing my cousins along.
Made in the Shaide 