It is long days and even longer nights--as if your body knows that you don't have to be up early in the morning, even though you always are.  The days stretch out before you as you fill them up with early morning walks before the heat takes over the city, drenching it in sweat and light.  It is the quiet afternoons spent reading a book and drinking homemade lemonade under the protective shade of your favorite tree. 

You find it in staying up late to stargaze--or read longer, abandoning yourself to the simple pleasure of getting lost in a book as you would when you were younger, snuggled deep into your comforter with only a dim light to help you read the words on the page.  And when the monsoons come you indulge in Gothic novels, the wind and the rain and lightning outside echoing the mystery and mayhem between the pages until your eyes close against your will and you awaken to a cool morning, quiet, hushed in the wake of last night's storm.

Time does not matter in the summer.  It unwinds itself slowly from the clock of your everyday life, loosening itself from the tick-tock of 1-2-3-4-5... like a ribbon unwinding from its spool, the hands on the clock face no long needing to clip through each second, for during summer the seconds expand, holding you there longer than you ever thought possible. 

You can give up real clothes, too, and proper meals.  You are allowed to walk around barefoot all day, blades of grass kissing the soles of your feet, your hair loose around your shoulders and faded to a golden-red from the sun's caress.  You summer uniform: nothing but a loose dress or yoga pants, anything that won't get in the way of you being you.  Makeup is forgotten in favor of naked skin, the sky, the air, the earth touching your bareness.  And proper meals: you don't need them.  Lunch is an overripe peach eaten in the grass, dinner a slap-dash meal of tomatoes and basil.  Who needs anything else?

Summer.  It is when you can abandon yourself to your reclusive nature, give yourself over to the bird's song and the chanting of the cicadas at night.  You can dance with the moon and twirl under the sun's gaze.  You can fill your lungs with the lush rose's sweet perfume and run your fingers through the wildflowers--daisies and dandelion heads mostly--and relish the way the clock's tick-tock tick-tock is replaced by the humming of bees and the rustle of leaves.