Summer Nights

When I lie awake on a summer night, crisp clean sheets beneath me and a slight breeze rustling the curtains, the fan whirring overhead, it brings me back to overnights at my grandparents house.

I would be on the rollaway bed while my brothers shared the pull-out in the spare room at my grandparent's house. The room that had been our father's when he was a teen. We were too little to appreciate teenager-hood. That was practically a grown-up as far as we were concerned.

We'd be freshly showered, but still sunburned and beach-tired from a day at the ocean. The ocean was one of the highlights of my grandparents' house. Winter or summer we would go down to the beach when we visited. In the summer we would go back to the house and get the sand off at the outside shower at the back of my grandparents' house (how cool is that - an outside shower!)

After dinner we'd watch a little TV while my grandparents' did the dishes. I remember my grandpa drying while grandma washed, aglow in the yellowish light over the sink. I love a kitchen with a cozy yellowish light in it, it gives me a happy feeling inside.

Finally we'd all settle into the guest room. The traffic sounds would be different than at home. The beds were different. I wasn't usually in the same room as my brothers. There was giggling and talking and probably a bit of quibbling. But eventually I'd hear the even breathing that meant sleep had overtaken the boys and I'd lie awake, hoping for that hint of a breeze through the windows. It all had a quintessential summer feeling to it and when I lie awake at night hoping for that hint of a breeze through the window it transports me back to that house with the cozy yellow light.

(the picture is of my brothers and me at the beach by my grandparents - around 1972)