What I Love, #4

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

Summertime edition:

I love fuzzy white peaches. I love peaches, a lot, but really only white peaches (Yes, I'm peach-racist.) I don't enjoy those yellow peaches, though I find the color of the yellow peaches with the deep red in the center near the pit quite beautiful. Nectarines, apricots, other stone fruits do not illicit such rhapsody from me.

I love cherries. I can eat cherries until they're gone. I have never in my life turned down fresh cherries, because they're just lovely. I enjoy these very, very chilled, with stems and pits intact. I pick up the cherries up by the stems and spit out the pits, which means that I never become stained with cherry juice. (I don't like being dirty.)

I love libraries. Okay, in all honesty, I love libraries all year round. I just especially love libraries in the summer, when it's hot and tiring to be outside. To walk into a cool library that smells like old paper is divine. I also really like to read on a hot day, in the shade (this can only be done in an area with dry heat, where it's actually cooler in the shade. Not applicable in humid areas, like Korea or Hawaii). I like to feel that drowsiness that comes from the heat while immersing myself into a good book.

I love the smell of chlorine. Weird, huh? As a California baby, I grew up swimming. I grew up with swimming pools, at home, at school, in the park. I also grew up, of course, with the balmy side of the Pacific Ocean practically in my backyard. The weather's very conducive for water babies, so that's what most Californians become. Because of that history, the smell of chlorine, combined with the sound of splashing water, makes me nostalgic and happy.

I love summer rains. The rain in summer is so different than the dreary rains of fall or winter, I think. Light, warm, misty, and cleansing. I love the smell of wet concrete and wet grass. I love the sky after it's rained. Everything looks and smells cleaner and brighter.


There are so many things I hate about summer- bugs, heat, the rare times I've experienced humidity- but for today, because I need it, I am choosing to focus on the positive.

I miss my family and my friends terribly lately. The depression's hit pretty hard and fast, as I was fine just a week ago.

Things will look up. I'm a cautious optimist at heart.