summer between the lines

This morning there is snow low on the mountains. Down here in the foothills it's just rain, but it's a bit discouraging that the Memorial Day weather forecast is 52 degrees and thunderstorms. I actually kind of like thunderstorms, and the rain here hasn't bothered me as much as I might have expected (possibly because I know that Utah will eventually come through with hot, dry summer weather, something I could never expect from Michigan). But I sort of think of Memorial Day as the summer kick-off, and snow on the mountains doesn't speak so much to kicking off summer.

I'm not sure why I think of Memorial Day as the start of summer. When you're a student (as I have been for most of my life) "summer" is not so much a season as it is a break from the routine. And for the last twelve-minus-one* years I have been done with classes (teaching or taking) by late April, and many of my major summer vacation trips have taken place before Memorial Day. But summer-the-season starts later, and by Memorial Day the weather is (usually) right about at the point where it becomes consistently warm and mostly sunny, and where life starts to finally feel like summer.

A couple days ago I was listening to a podcast in which the topic of discussion was something like "What marks the beginning of summer for you?" In the middle of the podcast, I felt compelled to take a break from cleaning my kitchen to cut a watermelon quarter that had been sitting in my refrigerator for a few days. I made no connection between this compulsion and the podcast I was listening to, and it wasn't until I was halfway through the cutting that I realized that this is precisely what marks the beginning of summer for me. It wasn't my first watermelon of the season. But it was the first watermelon that I purchased myself, and cutting into it marked the beginning of the time of year when watermelon, like milk or peanut butter or carrots or chocolate chips,** becomes a staple of my kitchen rather than a once-in-awhile treat. For me, although I can think of plenty of other signs of summer, like sunburns, miniature golf, running in shorts, long daylight hours, and flip flops, watermelon is when summer really begins.

So for now I can forgive the snow on the mountains. There's watermelon in my refrigerator, and that can't be negated by a little mountain thunderstorm.***

What marks the beginning of summer for you?


* When I taught high school in Virginia we weren't done until mid-June, but that was just one year.

*** I originally wrote that as "milk and peanut butter and carrots and chocolate chips," and then re-reading it made me gag and I had to change the sentence construction.

*** Even one that has lasted for two months straight...