The windows are down and the hot air of summer is blasting into the car. It's sunny and the world is gently cooking under the early summer warmth. The freeway cuts through and around the hills covered in green canopies and fields of cattle. The early evening sun is glaring through the windshield at that awkward angle that's too low for the visor but too high to adjust your seat. The smell comes out of nowhere. Grassy, fresh, and dusty. The faint residue of diesel exhaust tangled in with the rest. Suddenly, I'm not on the freeway home from work anymore. I'm sitting next to the barn with a bottle of water and a sandwich. We're halfway done putting up this cutting of hay and we'll be working til dark to finish. Pop is sitting on the tractor under the umbrella shooing flies away with his broad straw hat. The barn is already full of the sweet warm smell of sun-dried bales. Grassy, fresh, and dusty. Pop is telling us about a time he had helped throw hay as a boy and gotten tangled up with a nest of yellow jackets. Us kids are listening as if it were a war story and a grand fight of good versus evil. Dust swirls lazily in the sunshine as the breeze blows it off the hay wagon. And then I'm driving along the freeway again. The smell of hay fields lingering just a bit longer before it's washed away.

The sweet smell of my grandmother and grandfathers house brings back the memories of me playfully sitting down and drawing on the window, I also remember hearing my grandmas coughing, for she was severely sick. It was hard for me to handle because she was the sweetest person you could ever meet. Sweet tarts bring me back to the times I was 5, sitting at the table playing … and hearing the mumbling voices of the adults.

What takes you back to the carefree days of a child? Sometimes, I forget, I forget the good old days of being a carefree child.

I forget the imaginative imagination I had, like entering coins into a key hole wishing for love and happiness and joy.

I forget sometimes, the times my mum did my hair, how the magic serum was love. I forget the tingles that ran through my head from the touch of my mother’s hand.

Sometimes, sometimes I forget the carefree days where my visions and dreams were so big, that I could create another world within my head.

But you see, then I remember, because it’s not just my mother’s touch that can bring back these memories.

No no, it’s everywhere if I just look around. It’s in the magical touch of the students learning to be the hairdressers they want to be.

It’s in the care and love of something they find artistic and strive to be.

Sometimes we forget, we forget that love and care is all around us, all we need to do is see and look at the beauty that was given to us.

From: Your little diamond in the sky.

The plush embrace fills the air, Its softness comforting, My cute little bear.

With its eyes immense glare And meager size, The plush embrace fills the air.

Its brown skin quite bare, With the sweetest little smile, My cute little bear.

The tiny nose, a bit swell, “I love you” engraved, The plush embrace fills the air.

The little shirt and pants it wears, With a vast pink heart on its chest. My cute little bear.

We are a pair! It fills me with and joy and care! The plush embrace fills the air. My cute little bear.

Dear Young Self

Don’t you miss when we swing and jumped off playground equipment without a worry in the world. Jumping of a swing while swinging or jumping of a rock wall tower at the playground. What about playing Barbie’s and coming up with crazy role play ideas with them. What about drawing a yellow sun in the corner of your childhood drawings. But now your shadow just sits beside me unbeknownst to me. I now just sit their drawing snakes or writing my thoughts out or drowning out my thoughts with music on volume eleven. So long are the days of carefree playing. I’ve moved on to bigger and better things, but I’ll never forget you. I miss our old adventures together.

Sincerely, Your Future Self

The first juicy bite of a freshly sliced nectarine always takes me back. Fall has always been my favorite time of year, beginning in my childhood. We had a nectarine tree that would always produce fruit right when leaves started to change and the air started to chill. The fruit was better than candy, and we could never get enough. Sitting at our kitchen table staring at a skeletal centerpiece as we munched. My mom always decorated for Halloween as early as seemed reasonable. We loved Halloween. Fall leaves and jack o lanterns covered every surface, fall-scented candles were always burning, and spooky music was always playing throughout the house. I can still see it all; I can still transport myself back to it. It always happens during the first bite of a fresh nectarine.

His voice made me think back to the day first met. The day we first met was the day my mother was buried. To be exact I was nine. The body didn't look like my mother. I couldn't understand why no one was crying when I couldn't even sit through the ceremony then when I glanced at my dad my heart shattered when I saw he wasn’t even frowning. Some were good friends with my mom and those people were reading. The sight made me sick. Did they not care? I don’t even know how she died.

So I ran, I pushed open the church door not looking back. Not knowing where I was going Or where I was. Just running from reality. I sat down on a log and let it all fall, my tears, my shoulders, my smile. "What are you doing?" I sniffle up my snot. I wiped the tears from my face so I could see better.! " You're crying?” I nodded."I saw something pretty on my way here. Can I show you?"I fiddle with the handkerchief in my hand. “Um, sure.”He took me deeper into the woods holding my hand "Look, we are here." A waterfall. The sound of the rushing water was soothing, My lips Parted, and my eyes widened. I take my shoes off and step into the freezing water lifting my dress. A laughing Escaped my mouth. The fresh aroma of the waterfall made me feel slightly better I splashed him with water. The sky was a light pink hue I looked next to me and I noticed his eyes for the first time. They were different colors.

Although most don’t like the mildew musty scent of an unfinished basement. That smell brings me home. To my grandmas basement with the steel shelves and the random pink shower in the back corner. And my playspace on the right of the very steep staircase that always gave my family a mini heart attack when I ran down it. I spent most of my summers down there playing cashier with my grandmas endless shelf of overflowed food and becoming a chef with my tiny kitchen and sink water from the giant tub of a sink. When I was little, my grandma was my best friend. Whenever I was scared to go down in that large dark basement my grandma would always reassure me and we’d walk down there together. And then we would spend the rest of the day playing dress up and spending time together. Now that we sold that house and my grandma is getting sicker by the day, I miss that basement that made my summers so great. I miss those endless days that seemed to fly by because of my great imagination and the best playmate. (Edit: my grandma died in October)

Every summer I have grown a taller, stronger, and my hair grows a bit longer. And every summer I forget the way things used to be, they aren’t the same anymore. I can’t say I miss being a child, but I suppose that nothing will ever go back to the way they were. As I tended to my mundane evening one day in early June I was struck by the sun’s blazing heat and scurried to the shade of a tree. I had carried on, giving only a thought of disgrace to such a scorching feeling. It wasn’t until a few moments later, when the sun began its descent below the horizon, that I heard the buzzing in the trees. They’re quite horrid creatures, as I have seen them. Cicadas burrow in the ground for years and emerge when summer arrives, just as swift as the other. It wasn’t even the first night that they were there; however that evening, the cicadas were the heralds to my nostalgia. For a very long time, all I wanted to remember were the days I spent in my neighborhood, blowing dandelion seeds into stale wind and other things that would never matter. They were things I thought I would never miss. At the sound of such droning from the cicadas, I remembered hide and seek in backyards, choking humidity, sprinklers, and painting my legs and wet chalk. There were friendship bracelets and yard sales, bikes with training wheels, gravel paths next to the dreaded woods, the taste of popsicle sticks, and the smell of pool water in my hair. I am not many years away from the childhood that I recall, but it feels too far away. Maybe more than that I could remember the days when my lover and I met much the same as I have described; delirious days of comforting heat and long laughters. It was not difficult to imagine her next to me, meandering without end. She would have felt the same, we did not know how much those summers were worth until we were out of reach of them. The days of this yearning and wistfulness are yet to pass, and I still hold on to this summer as if it were the last. I fear that it is the beginning of my last summers, perhaps I will forget that l cared about them at all. As I write this, September has begun, and now I have to listen closely to hear the cicadas.

I have a very particular morning routine. I awake and head to the bathroom to relieve my full bladder, rid my mouth of my terrible morning breath, and clean the sorrows of my dreams with fresh, warm water. I was unfortunately graced with bad eye sight, a trait from my mother. Most days, my left pointer finger touches each eyeball twice a day. But some days, I choose my glasses, which allows me to take my eye sight away quickly and decompress from the day. But honestly, the days I choose my glasses are the ones where I know I am able to nap during the day.

After the bathroom sequence, I start my very calculated skincare routine. Skincare is my favorite part. I used to not understand why, because I never had bad skin and I’m not afraid of aging. But it’s a small part of my day that I take care of myself and it doesn’t feel like a chore. The lineup is cleanse and/or exfoliate (exfoliate is only twice a week, you don’t want to make your skin too dry), toner, serum, moisturizing gel, sunscreen.

As an adult and in therapy, I have discovered the reality of my parents not giving me what I needed when I was a child. My mother almost never hugged or touched me. I wasn’t comforted in the way that I wished I was. One of the few times that my mom did touch me was during the summer and required sunscreen. She wanted us to be protected, as we all had fair skin and skin cancer runs through our family like the plague. I remember the smell of the sunscreen. Sunscreen reminds me of the love my mom had for me and my siblings. Because she didn’t always touch me, this was so significant to me. The sunscreen that I put on my face every morning has a tinge of that smell.

Touching my own face with all of my products reminds me of the small amount of times my mother did provide me with a loving touch. The sunscreen provides me with good nostalgia. I have many bad nostalgic memories. But this is one of the good ones. It’s a good start to my morning, a start with a smile, and a start to another, possibly hard, day that I know will end up okay.