Summer Migration

Summer Migration

It’s July 2.  The stores are having their summer sales, although summer hasn’t really come to the Northwestern United States.  We all have our turtlenecks on, and while the humming birds, the robins, and the ospreys are here in their summer territory, and the solstice is more than a week gone, it’s not full-on summer yet.  Not here.

I watch the winter weather in Sydney.  It echos the early summer weather here, just three hours’ drive below the Canadian border.  As soon as the temperature tops 65F, I drag out my shorts, hoping against hope for a warm day.  True, I pair shorts with turtlenecks, but a girl can dream, can’t she?  Sandals too.  I’m determined to create a small illusion of the possibility of summer – even a tiny whiff.  

The weather dips and weaves, hanging out a few tantalizing hours of sun after the foghorn stills and the mist burns off.  I long for the sun, to be warm, for a few sweaty hot days.  Not too hot at night, mind you, so sleeping is easy, and not too muggy either, but enough that you know it’s summer. 

I have a couple of days to wait.  The first day of summer in the Northwest is July 5.  Summer skips along tentatively until mid-August and then sputters out in fits and starts until mid October.  

I fly south to Australia on the first day of August so I can feel the sun on my face and smell the salt air — and wrap my arms around my family and friends, too.  As soon as I step on my local beach, I relax completely.  My to-do tick-list becomes far less important, and it matters less that Telstra has disconnected my phone again.  I’m home in a different way than I am in the States.  Not better, just different.  But home, nonetheless.  Ah, Oz.

Photos: Entrance 8B, Tallow Beach.  Pt. Byron.  Credit:  C. E. Wilkins