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Finding Sanctuary at Jewish Surf Camp
Summer has always felt to me like a season I should love but I’ve never really taken to. I’m an introvert-leaning winter baby (shocking that I’m a writer, I know) so I prefer almost everything that goes with cold weather except for dirty snow. By contrast, the summer is an extrovert’s paradise; The relentless sun and endless heat a lot of pressure to be happy and scantily clad and bodily confident.
This is the easiest, shallowest explanation for my historical summer disdain.
There is, of course, a deeper, less cute reason.
The summers of my youth were long seasons of yearning and longing.
Summer when I was a poor kid who got evicted with my Mom a lot and didn’t always have food in the house meant that for months the only meal I could depend on for sure most days would be free breakfast at my nearest public school in the mornings. But food for the rest of the day was an open question.
I patiently waited out the heat and tried to sleep through my hunger, my back aching through humidity, lusting after the sound of the Mister Softee jingle echoing down hot concrete streets, hoping that the sound of cars rushing through water was a much needed break from a rainstorm when really it was just an open fire hydrant transformed into a sprinkler by a hollow old can.
