This is one of my summer friends...Few years ago I red a little story about summer vacation, spent just the way I spend it. It is pretty much a Croatian way. I will try to tell it how I remember it.
Every year I can hardly wait to go to our summer place. And when I come there everything is suddenly changed. I transfer to a different person, a better person, the one that is actually me... Suddenly I don't care what I wear, I am walking around in shorts, mini skirts, low cut t-shirts, even a bikini (pareo optional) wet hair, no make up, combinations I wouldn't be caught dead in my normal life. I am spending a lot of time at the beach, doing NOTHING, which I forget how to do during the year. Ok, it is more then nothing, I get to read a book or two, do some swimming, kayaking, drink a coffe at the beach bar...We eat healthy, fresh seasonal local fruits and veggies and a lot of candy, cookies or ice cream and I don't care that I will get few extra pounds. I never say no to a BBQ or prosciutto And I have a lot of friends there that I meet all over again at every beginning of the summer, and wave goodbye in august. I talk to them about the things I want to talk about. I don't have to pretend or hide. I always find myself again. And of course there is a lot of small talk all over the place, recipes, hobbies, pets, travelling, kids... We complain about the heat and mosquito and tourists, we drink a lot of anything we want to, go to bed when we want and I even get to fall asleep in the afternoon which never, ever happens to me in a normal life. We are chasing the sun tan and we don't bother with haircuts. When I look in the mirror at the end of summer and see a tanned girl ten years younger with , sunkissed, tangled and dry hair, with bright eyes and very very dry skin full of mosquito bites and scratches, It is not a stranger, it is ME...
A wonderful story. The excitement of living at the beach, stripping all the normal trappings away and living in the moment. No rules, no schedule, no facade. Just taking it all in and savoring it until next year.
