92 in May

It’s May, and it was 92 today. I spent the day out and about. Then poolside. The air felt different today. And yesterday. After I lay and swam and tanned and napped in the sun, I came back to my apartment and ate chips and guacamole on the balcony, swimsuit wet and hair smelling like chlorine.

It felt like being at my grandma's, eating a bag of Tostitos out on the covered deck wrapped in a faded Barbie beach towel. A bowl of cut-up watermelon and her smiling face. The smell of wet concrete. Of sweetgrass from the field behind the fence line. The heat of the sun radiating off of it.

I felt like I was ten again. Except I have not been ten for a very long time, and my grandma's house was sold a decade ago, and she has been dead for years.

I am twenty-five and visit my apartment complex pool often in the summers. Often enough to recognize the same crowd.

I always show up with the same things. Towel, keys, water, sunnies, tanning oil, headphones, a book, and a pen. I lie in the sun, I read a few pages, underline a few words, and I peek over the page every now and then.

There’s the middle-aged couple along the pool edge, propped up with floaties and hard lemonades in their hands. Giggles echo. Then the father and his twenty-something son and their Pabst Blue Ribbon. Chatting about a career in college football and not driving home after this. IGLOO cooler on deck for a quick refresh. Other days I see the tattooed dad with his two kids. They seem to be about eight and ten. Lots of "I dare you" and "I ain't scared!" They remind me of my sister and me. Raising hell. Then, there's the grandma who teaches her grandson to swim. He gets frustrated, and she stays patient. “Let’s just try one more time”, she says, smiling. Her frayed woven sun visor and big sunglasses. I sit, and I smile.

On the rare occasion it is just me, my observations and the water, I treat it as my own. I swim around carelessly. Sometimes I just float on my back and let the water muffle it all. Sometimes I lean against the pool edge with my book and kick my legs softly. Sometimes I just lie on a lounger with my eyes closed and let the warmth of the sun and smell of sunscreen take me back to running around that pebbled pool deck and brick-lined patio. For thirteen summers it burned the bottoms of my feet. 

My childhood summers were spent muffled by the sound of crashing waves and lifeguard whistles and sex wax. Sun Bum and sea salt. The sun always bleached my hair, tinged green from the chlorine. Sand sprinkled in. These days it stays honey blonde, full of Nevada desert dust.

I sat in the doorway that led out to the balcony and listened to the afternoon pigeon coo and the gentle hum of a distant A/C unit. I scooped the green mush and let out a sigh. 6 x 12. Two rocking chairs, two purring cats, and a large amount of potted plants courtesy of my mom. The blue of the sky over the distant tree line and rooftops. The school bus passing by. The brakes screech, just like they did 15 years ago. I doubt they still smell of hot leather and diesel. It always tends to hit me like a ton of bricks on a random warm day in May.

I miss my nana.