"Children feel life. They smell it, roll in it, run with it, see it all around them. Feel the world through the eyes of a child." 

-Unknown 

My two cousins Zeke and Elijah incessantly remind me how to stay gold, especially when we're all together at my grandma's lake.

-RAY

I love the summer nights when it's been grey all day but right at sunset/dusk the sky breaks open and spills over with the most enchanting light, shining all blue and purple. When this happens you have to drive with all the windows down, Channel Orange blaring, and the green summer earth blowing in.

-RAY

At night we'd skate to get the blood pumping in our bodies, giving us a rush of electric youth adrenaline. It was a perfect straight, smooth shot of asphalt down the middle, shining like embers from the lights lining the boardwalk. Soon our warm, tanned, slightly sunburnt skin would shine with sweat in the moonlight and we'd slowly peel off layers of clothes, compiling a jumble of our shed belongings on the concrete. Euphoria would shock through my body with a jolt when I looked up and felt it all as I rushed along on my board hearing the cracks click rhythmically beneath me. Suddenly I'd turned around and caught sight of the shadowed, orange glowing, moon reflecting forms of my gang feeling free with me. The camaraderie of flying close to each other, reaching out our hands, high fiving, never missing, is inexplicable. And the in sync chorus of us yelling "CAR!" as the blinding headlights paraded down the lot and once gone the open space was greeted with a simultaneous "GAME ON!"

One night I was skating alongside Jacob and he suddenly asked "How are you feeling?" And I paused for a few seconds looking around at the night ocean and the palm trees before answering "It always just feels so good. No matter what." We were both smiling and nodding and before skating off he said "That's how it's supposed be, man."

-RAY

The air went deeper than my lungs. It filled every pore of my body from my dirt covered fingers to my sacred torn shoes. It was replenishing me with humid pink pillowy air so rich and overwhelming it felt like a dream. 

poem written by me, June 11th

I want to live where it is always summer so I can live the beach bum life but I must bring all of my friends with me because they light up my world.

-RAY

 

And I smell like chlorine from the night swim at Cam's tiki torch lit Oracular Spectacular resonating pool. I smell like sweat from boarding seven miles to aimless adventures. My hands smell like lakewater from scrambling to catch frogs with the boys after sunset. And I'm torn between the toxic urge to laugh at the constant movements of our bodies and souls in torn shoes and old, precious cars or to fall down in the most satisfied exhaustion.

Summer is in the dirt under my fingernails from digging in the hot earth. The wild days and nights left their sacred mark of youth on me with bruised knees and scarred shins. Foolishly, but perhaps wisely, I hope the wounds leave scars behind so I can always remember what it feels like to run around rooftops with Stevo and Cam after midnight; to lay on the ground by the fire amidst the stars, the lake, and the people I love, the imprint of the grass on my leg when I stand; to pack in the backseat, everyone's hands feeling the summer dusk out the windows as smooth hip hop plays; to climb trees with Erika simply because we can; to dance on the patio with hair wild and wet from the pool, bodies bared, towels barely around waists and shoulders, faces reflecting madly from the high of summer, glowing in the firelight. I want to always remember how it feels to be truly young with people you love so much it hurts.

-written June 3, 2014

-RAY

I just can't get over how dang good it feels to see friends almost everyday, how you can just step outside barefoot, to drink in summer's hot sublimity, how we were on the roof late at night in the warm green growing golden halo light of the summer night identifying constellations.

-RAY