remembering reality bites

The sticky air and my freshly laundered sheets have me thinking of Italy in August.  It was hot and I was 22. The stairwell looked out onto a courtyard full of clotheslines.  I hopped into a true roman shower and then laid down on the bed still damp and fell asleep - it was the only way to do so.

There are moments that I have at times taken for granted that I am now so very grateful to have had.  The three weeks of summer that I spent Europe bound was one of them. My friend and I carried our clothes on our back and ate dried sausage and baguette on park benches.  We rented bicycles in France and rode a bus around Florence.  It was the first cool night of the trip and I remember laying in the dark on the top bunk in a hostel outside of Paris, grateful for the scratchy blanket folded at my feet.  In my hands was a Walkman and over my ears were the headphones.  Inside a mixed tape playing Stay by Lisa Loeb.

I've already made a Summer of 2011 playlist.  It will remind me later of the seemingly endless home renovations and also the hope that accompanied them. Change. A new job. Free Sunday Swims at the public pool. The heat. The perpetual feeling of being almost done.

Finding Kevin's Old Spice deodorant in the oddest places.