The moon always looks closer in August. The outside of a bar
and the inside of a swimming pool feel exactly the same; balmy and sticky and
sour, in the way that only chlorine and whiskey can be. This summer will be my
last. In a few months, I will join the drone of worker bees, shuffling our way
from subway platform to concrete street on our way to work in the morning.
To be honest, I’m terrified. I’m scared I won’t be able to
stay awake from 9 until 5. After about three hours in my black stilettos, I’m
afraid I’ll start making that face I make after being in high heels for too
long. My teeth will be ever-stained with lipstick. My pantyhose will always
have a run. And I don’t know when it will ever be acceptable to wear American
flag shorts with a bathing suit top again.
I want to remember these summer nights forever. Ideally, they
should never end, but even if they continue, they won’t be the same. I want to
remember the last summer I spent in Los Angeles, throwing parties at Oddfellows
Museum of Artifacts and Oddities with Kati and James. We were inseparable that
summer, always finding excuses to throw tea parties in the park or sip whiskey
in Audrey Hepburn’s bathtub couch at the Museum. We would roast marshmallows
indoors and James and I would sneak around back to make out by the pool. An old
couple stopped us in the super market that August and told us, “It’s so nice to
see young people truly in love.” I blushed.
I want to remember the following summer, where Jimmy and Matt
and I packed up my car with dozens of fireworks and borrowed bottles of tequila
and headed to Waco. We split the cost of gas and spent our nights getting drunk
in seedy Southwestern motels. I was falling out of love, and so was Jimmy, and
so was Matt. We had a 2002 Ford Explorer full of heartbreak and explosives.
It’s a miracle we made it to Austin alive.
I want to remember South by Southwest in the Austin spring
time. The Strokes were playing a free show, Juicebox blaring from the main
stage set up at Zilker park. Security guards and police officers with riot
shields closed the gates with nearly 300 of us still left outside. I didn’t
think. I just ran. My bare feet passed over the grass and hooked easily into
the chain link fence separating me from Julian Casablancas. All around me,
dirty teenagers and wasted young folk were being thrown back over the fence by
the Man. There was a cacophony of drums and bass and lead guitar, nearly
drowning out the screams of our generation. But we prevailed. Somehow, we got
over that fence, landing in the backstage area, no less.
I want to remember the nights I spent dancing in the kitchen
with my best friends at Beatnix. Chris would turn on Lovefool by the Cardinals
and we would scream it to each other while Billy rang up grilled cheese orders
and Eric smoked cigarettes. We would race over there as soon as our day jobs
cut us loose, the same place every night for weeks. It was better than therapy.
Eric and I would talk about books we had read and places we’d been, and Billy
would write songs about girls. Chris would need a ride there, of course,
because his motorcycle was always breaking down, so we would speed down the
highway listening to mix CDs and swearing to one another that we wouldn’t
forget about each other when I moved away.
I want to remember watching the Olympics in Hyde Park in
London. Duran Duran was blaring some old 80’s tune, and six thousand eyes were
glued to the giant screen projecting the opening ceremonies. Even though we
didn’t know the British national anthem, we sang along as best as we could. We
bought icy beers even though it was raining and danced without umbrellas
alongside people from Mumbai, Norway, Mongolia, Australia, and Brazil. We
cheered for JK Rowling and booed when the sound cut out, briefly, during the
Peter Pan part. For a few hours, we weren’t a group of mismatched
transcontinental strangers. We were citizens of the world.
I want to bottle up these wild, wild nights so that I can take
them out and savor them when I’m no longer young. I want to always remember
what it feels like to be this free.
