The feeling of dry grass under small bare feet and crusted dirt on our faces. Dust on our clothes and the taste of blueberry yogurt and Salmiak licorice in my mouth.
When I think back to the Augusts of my childhood this is the film roll my mind plays for me. Summer in the early ’00s.
I know myself good enough to know, that I tend to romanticize things, especially when it comes to old blurry memories, like not being able to reach the tap of my grandmother’s fitted kitchen. But still, I can’t help but think that I must have spent all my summers there. Inside this old kitchen, in my grandmother’s farmhouse in the German countryside.
Riding my bike to the lake, diving deep down into the cold water, turning my head upwards, and watching hundreds of bubbles escaping with my oxygen. They rush up to the surface and leave me breathless, with a blurry sight into the blue sky.
This warm, hazy time at the end of summer has its own rhythm. In its endless evenings, still stretched out like the midsummer ones, already lies the idea of winter. September reaches out its fingers into the colder days. Softly stroking the thought of melancholy.
I fell in love with Adele’s song “Someone like you” when I was around the age of 10. “We were born and raised in a summer haze”. A September-feeling.
“You know how the time flies, Only yesterday was the time of our lives”.
This summer we were forced to slow down, to look up. It made me return from the breathtaking, swirling midsummer city nightlife that guided my last two years with its blinding lights and vibrant beats, back to the summer feeling of my childhood- a family weekend at my grandma’s house. Collecting late summer days memories, hazy golden, but also frozen moments of dust and heat. I take pictures of my Grandma, my aunts, my mom, my siblings, my cousins, desperately trying to capture these moments, already knowing how much happiness lies in them.
I’ve been a summer child. Outside in the fields. Barefoot with scratches on my knees and elbows. That changed. I’ve found peace and comfort in the darkness of winter, and the cozy blankets in my bed on a rainy, stormy day in October.
But even more, the line of Adele seems to describe my life perfectly.
I was born and raised in a summer haze. And that part of me will forever keep me warm in December.
