Day Dreaming

"Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, let me go home
Why dont you let me go home...

...I feel so broke up

I wanna go home"

-Beach Boys "Sloop John B"

Sometimes when I'm sitting here slapping mailing stickers onto FedEx envelopes or typing in addresses for a million packages, I wonder what these places are like that they'll be going to. Then it makes me think of home, but especially the summertime (since I wish it was summer already). Like sitting on the porch in a t-shirt and jeans just as the dry heat of the Friday sun is evaporating with the coastal chill of the evening, the marine layer starting to roll in. Of course, it helps if there are oldies playing on the dusty radio in the workshop, or if a friend calls up and tells you it'd be great to go to the beach tomorrow, and do you want to come? You could stop at Pedro's or In-N-Out for lunch and spend the rest of the day sitting on the sand or swimming in the almost-warm Pacific waters. There could be a bonfire that night, which you sit near, playing cards in the dark sand, your salty hair tied back and sunburned arms disapproving of the sweater you had to pull on when the sun went down. Or you could go back home and swim in the pool to get all the salt and sand off, then go for a walk down the dark empty road, the coyotes howling their haunting song and the birds that refuse to go to sleep the only sounds.

The sun rises early and sets late. There's not much to do all day but sit around, take walks, swim, and eat when it isn't too hot. The cats lie around in the only cool places left-- shadows in the garage, the shady spot under the kitchen table, or when the windows are open in the evening, on the sills, straining the screens near to the point of bursting.

It's refreshing in the evening to go out and stand in the grass for a minute, feel the cool blades beneath your feet, or dangle your feet in the pool slurping a homemade milkshake and thinking about nothing but the sun and the air, and longing slightly for February when it might rain, but not wanting anything but these moments of nothing to do and nothing to worry about.