If summer had an algorithm, it wouldn’t feed you an endless scroll of images. It wouldn’t care if you clicked. It wouldn’t try to monetize you. It would encourage you to slow down, day dream, let your mind wander.

Mine journeys back to long days and soft lingering light that fought with futility to fend off dusk and darkness. To hitchhiking back roads in search of hidden swimming holes for afternoons of skipping stones and skinny dipping and getting high. To rumbling toward the beach in the back seat of a friends’ VW bug, no seatbelts fastened.

The houses there were sweep-outs. The backyard grills ran on charcoal. For air conditioning we opened the windows facing the water.

I can never go back to the places or the people, but I can still sense those summers past. And smell them. And feel them below my bare feet. They float back to me through dappled light. Or get carried my way by summer’s breeze. And sometimes, if I’m fortunate, they even appear for a moment when I look through the viewfinder.