Only In Summer

For Pagemaster's Challenge #6. Winter is the only thing that makes me feel a little blue right now... I'll get back to you after the election.

It’s the “scrunch” of the wet and heavy snow you notice first under your step as another long winter begins. Not the refreshing “snap” that comes later when it’s colder and the snow is dry and light. It’s these earliest weeks of the season that are the most melancholy for me. These weeks remind me of a time when I was young and carefree.

 

 As a boy I relished the Alaskan winters. Snowmobiles and ice skates and snow sleds and hockey sticks all played a role in this, the most elaborate of conspiracies.

My brother and I would hunt rabbits for hours in the waist-deep snow until our legs were numb with cold, we thought nothing of it. We were young and carefree.

We would go sledding all day on the hills near the house until dusk chased us home. We would be bruised and stiff from soft-tissue injuries received when flying over the jumps and outcroppings as we competed for “air”. We never broke any bones and the sore muscles would stop throbbing in a day or two. We were young and carefree.

 

We could shovel snow and haul firewood for as long as it took. We knew how to work as hard as we played... dad saw to that. We learned that fifteen degrees Fahrenheit was perfect for shoveling the driveway. As soon as the work had warmed us we would take off our heavy coats and wool hats and laugh at the steam that rose from the other’s head. We were young and carefree.

 

But those days are far gone. The cold and snow and shoveling do remain however. In addition to backaches and snow tire changes and anti-freeze checks and heat tape installations and engine heaters and sand bags and emergency flares. All these make summer seem so distant. Only in summer am I able to feel young and carefree again.

 

Reviews

[Winter McPherson]

Hmmm.....loved the walk down memory lane. Brought a smile to my face. A bit of nostalgia that is always endearing to a reader. Sounds like the start of a great book that's just itching to be written.

I've always wanted to visit Alaska - actually there was even a time I longed to live there. This makes me realize that visiting would be great but I should be very glad to live in Southern Cal! lol! :)

Thanks for sharing a bit of your life with us - you and your brother laughing at the steam rise off of your heads..

[Sel Whiteley]

Yes, the transcience of youth and those poignant moments that take us back there. The repetition and listing through out this help to draw such a vivid picture but it is the refrain of 'young and carefree' that makes it so powerful. I can only remember snow a few dozen times in my life but it was so beautiful, seeming in itself to give the world such innocence and freshness and yet there was that harshness to it where you need to work through shovelling it. Still, I cannot really imagine how it must be there. A great write.

[An Ordinary Woman]

Awe, this is nice, Ak.

And I know what ya mean, only it is a little diff here. Still, Summer already feels so far away whether I'm thinking about the one just past past, or looking forward to the new one coming. We had flurries Friday night.
I topped a hill on my way home from work and there it was. It was like night and day. It was really weird, and a bit scary. The wind was blowing so hard the snow was blowing across the roadway in that really eerie way it does.

[kruser23]

ah,..this is awesome,...i have a lot of Ak memories very similar to this poem. Nice work.

[J]

Ah D, is it okay to tell you here how your writing has scaled mountains, plunged depths too chilling to consider, taken on a shimmer and life all its own . . . since we met? I am stunned and brought to tears by this piece . . . because I know you. It is as though you have unzipped your chest and showed us your heart beating with endless courage and yeah, faith. Knees wear out, tolerance grows shorter, summer seems to become an unreachable quest, but I gotta tell ya, that ink in your pen? It has taken on a hue and strength and depth uncommon in this realm.

This is a keeper, my friend.

Excellent.
j

[Donald Meikle]

Wow does this ever hit home AK. I'm instantly melancholy.

[Emily B]

Oh, I'm sorry. The 40 degrees I grumbled over this morning is nothing compared to the weather you are seeing. May summers come a little faster to you every year.