On Summer

Even without a months-long vacation – a concept rendered impossible by my desire to do things like eat and pay rent – I find myself mourning the end of the summer season. Maybe’s is a holdover from when I was a kid, but for me, summer sunrises have always blazed with endless promise, and summer sunsets howl with the potential for adventure.

The second the weather is anything but sub-zero, my mind fills with images of Street Fighter, Super Mario, and Sega Genesis.

The sun shining through my office window right now is a poor substitute for the lazy summer days of my youth. Hot breeze through the window and limitless levels of Duke Nukem 3D; sweat pouring down my face and condensation on an icy Coke Classic; sitting on my mother's bed with a magazine in my hand and the smell of fresh cut grass wafting around the neighborhood, reading about video games I never did play but remember loving anyway; and a quick sun shower to wash it all down with Blind Melon's "No Rain" playing in the background, an irony I'm only noticing now.

Yet my days are no longer shaped by saving the princess, scrounging up magic spells in Final Fantasy, or searching for the Sword of Kings with a bunch of psychic preteens in Earthbound. My kingdom for a Super NES, a cheap dial-up connection and no worries.

But welcome, autumn. Without you, your doppelganger spring, and Old Man Winter, I suppose my memories of those long days of Mario and chocolate milk and sunning myself with a Gameboy in-hand wouldn’t be nearly as precious.