Oh, to be a kid again in summer

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

The 18-year-old calls from a pay phone after work, before play rehearsal and we talk about our day and then she says, "I miss summer." And though it is the middle of summer, hot and sunny and steamy, I know exactly what she means.

She misses being a kid. She misses all those long, lazy days that when you're 8 or 10 or 12, you're sure will last forever. She misses staying up late at night watching movies and videotapes of school plays, and waking slowly in the morning, sleeping until she's no longer tired, not until some alarm wakes her.

She misses those little Drake's cakes with the cinnamon on the top and Hostess powdered donuts and Juicy Juice and fruit punch. She doesn't like these things anymore. But she misses how she used to like them, how finding a package of donuts on the table could make her day.

She misses sleepovers, swimming, softball, day trips to the beach, Skee-Ball at Nantasket, weekend trips to Maine, Cheez-its at the pool, tuna fish sandwiches on soft white bread. "Mom! Watch me!" Doing handstands in the water and cartwheels on the grass. Eating slushes. Staying outside until the mosquitoes drove her in. Getting in the car and going to a movie at 10 p.m. because she didn't have to get up early the next day. Falling asleep on the couch.

She misses hanging out with her friends, having nothing to do, blowing bubbles, making string bracelets, playing wiffle ball with her brother. She misses early evening, sitting on the back yard swing and just rocking.

The patio swing broke this year after 20 years of service. The main frame rusted and the seat rotted and in April we threw the whole thing away. I looked for another; I called the store where we bought it. But the salesman said, "They stopped making those swings a long time ago."

I was certain I would miss that swing. It was where I used to sit at the end of a day. It was where my kids would come and sit beside me.

But the truth is I've hardly missed it at all.

There are children out there still sitting on some swing or in some chair beside their mothers, telling their tales, begging, "Read me a story. Watch me blow bubbles. Listen. Look. See." There are children riding their bikes to the corner store and catching grasshoppers and butterflies and putting them in jars and hurrying home for supper. There are children even now packing their bags and going off with friends to the Cape or New Hampshire for a week.

But not my kids. That time has passed. The backyard is empty. There are no children to call in from play. The children are grown up. They call from work. They leave notes on the kitchen table and messages on answering machines. We communicate on the run. The phone has become our back yard swing, our daily connection.

This isn't a bad thing. It's just different. Mothers, constantly chauffeuring their kids somewhere, watching them by a pool all day, trying to get them to quiet down at night, mothers who never have a minute to themselves, would love a few weeks of this. And young teens, bored now with summer's slower pace, would jump at a summer job and the chance to have their own money.

But when you're there, you wish you were back sometimes - on the swing, or running the bases, or stretched out on the couch watching "The Karate Kid" for the zillionth time, with not a care in the world.

Maybe that's human nature. Maybe that's why children are always moving from one thing to another, never stopping. Maybe they know, somehow, that if they slow down, age will catch up to them; that the day they finally stop, responsibility will snare them and their childhood will be gone.

It ends for everyone, of course. That's life. And it's a good life, most of the time.

Except on hot August days when even an 18-year-old longs to be a kid again.