Summer 2012

Now that I've entered the working world, "summer vacation" no longer means two-point-five months of leisure and adventure the way it did when I was in school. Even when I attended summer classes or worked part-time, choice was still very much a part of my decisions. I could pile English class on top of English class, fill the empty space with library work, and still feel like summer was mine to design and control.

And even now that I'm securely settled into full-time work -- albeit, still a temp -- I feel the need to section off my summer from sun-warmed June to humid August and fill it with summer things. I crave travel writing and novels set in faraway places, bossa nova on my living-room stereo, and meals crafted from farmers' market finds. And, like Vachel Lindsay one hundred years before me, I feel the need to go west.

Outside Atchison, Kansas; Birthplace of Amelia Earhart; May 2010

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