Summer Nights...

It's so funny how I've become affectionate about my blog. When things happen now, I find myself making mental notes about the moments and making sure they end up in my blog. I love it. Capturing life. Moments I'd probably tend to forget. I process out loud so much (and to many people's displeasure) that maybe this will slow my brain down... Yeah, right...

Tonight, I ran out to my husband's car to get something out of it. The sound of crickets and bull frogs and the scent of heat met me as I ducked under the slow crank of the garage door. I love those moments when you are transported to a reality of a time passed. I thought about how as a kid I loved summer nights. Catching fire flies (which I've never seen in South Carolina) and "playing" with my friends. I remember hanging out at the Cul-de-Sac behind my house with Wes,Jason, and my best friend, Jessica (yes, same name as mine). Riding our bikes home late in the dark. I loved the night time heat. It meant summer was here- no school. I think we had a constellation club. But we called it a star club. We'd sit and study the stars. I also had a rock collection that summer. And I think it was the summer that Jason and Wes and probably Matt built a Tree fort in the woods at the back of the neighborhood. We were the 4 musketeers (5 if Matt was around). Jess and I provided the pillows b/c we were in 4-H. HOwever, we filled them with plastic bags. I don't know why. We were kids! We loved playing in the woods at the back of the neighborhood. Jessica moved away in 5th grade. But Wes and Jason and I staye friends through the Mo-ped stage and high school. We didn't go in the woods anymore. We didn't build forts. We became teenagers.

What's funny now is that I'm usually scared of my back yard here in SC. Maybe because we usually have gators in the pond beyond my fence or I've chases a few snakes away. I don't know; but it's like I'm afraid of the dark. I also realized that when they developed the rest of my neighborhood, my parents built a house about 3 lots away from the woods I played in as a child. But, I never went in the woods once I moved back there. I guess it's all those "Neverland" stories that you can't go back to once you've grown up. But why don't I go in the woods? And why am I afraid of the dark?

My friend Jessica's birthday is next month. I want to send her a Barbie doll. I wonder how Jason and Wes and Matt are...