No other season - except perhaps Christmas - can call forth my inner child like the summer season. Whether it's the long hours of daylight, the sense of freedom from the daily grind, the notion that it's acceptable to loll around reading for an hour after lunch, or just the vestiges of childhood's inner calendar which associates warm, sunny days with being young, foolish, and free - summer is the season when I find myself yearning to be young again.
I've found that connecting with one's inner child becomes more difficult with each passing year. No surprise, I suppose, because our childhood selves retreat further and further into the shadows of our experience. Particularly for those of us without young children anywhere in the family, it's easy to sink into the cynical stodginess that seems to grow like an arrant weed in the garden of our middle-aged mind. Thank goodness for our dogs, who demand that we spend at least a certain amount of time jumping around with and acting silly - playing, in other words.
Perhaps that's the thing about summer which most summons my inner child. It makes me want to play - to ride my bike, to throw a ball around, to run through the sprinkler. To abandon the serious, workaday world, and just revel in the sunshine and freedom. Summertime not only gives us permission to play, it practically demands that we do, rather like my two little dogs who are perpetually child-like in so many ways.
August is half gone already, and with it will go that heady sense of freedom summer brings.
I believe I hear my inner child calling now - time to go out and play.
For this month's Cafe Writing Option 3: Pick 3 words.