A Summer Day
the sweat-streaked joy of sharing the season's gifts with another warm body
The morning sun enters through the window blinds and creates a striped pattern along the naked bodies, shining light on all the vulnerable places that are usually trusted with linen fabric or a lover’s touch. Warmth glows behind shut eyelids, causing kaleidoscopic swirls of fuzzy reds and oranges to float against their natural blackness. Feet caught in knotted sheets kick futilely while two sets of hands and arms reach for each other and sweaty thighs slide against one another to create an entanglement of their own. The two bodies, surrendering to their inherent magnetism, laden with a heavy stillness, slowly open their eyes to take in the small, sleepy smiles and restful tan limbs that for a second comprise the whole world. Suspended in those first moments preceding consciousness, everything registers as an extension of whatever dreamland had taken over the mind and all immediate surroundings are imbued with a precarious purity, glowing with a pleasant aura.
But then comes the imposition of lucidity and the motion of the world resumes: birds chirp, the sun rises higher, a car goes by, and somnolent bodies sit themselves up. Legs are then flexed down to the toes, arms are lifted high over head, and stiff muscles are loosened like water smoothing the texture of a rocky shore. A silk slip dress and a pair of calzoncillos are picked up from the floor where they were thrown the night before and, respectively, donned over a golden bedhead and pulled up an endless length of legs. For some reason, laughter escapes from upturned lips and follows after the soft pads of feet that now make their way down a spiraling wooden staircase, a tropical, mildewy scent filling the air.
Onto the kitchen–– nectarines, kiwis, pineapples, strawberries, peaches, and nísperos are sliced, thrown into a bowl, and carried outside. From the garden terrace, the sun glitters so brightly off the Mediterranean Sea, its emerald waters appear less like a natural phenomenon and more a result of someone having spilled the sparkling ink of a gel pen. The surrounding landscape, normally defined by its sprawling shrubbery and vibrant flora, is covered by a sheet of blazing white.
The sun’s energy knows no limit, extending itself further and further until skin prickles with its heat and everything, even flesh and blood, hums with its electric current. Then a specific type of moment is generated, one in which time reverses and old childhood instincts, usually stifled by learned decorum, suddenly rush to the surface. Hands reach into the bowl and turn sticky as they bring bunches of fruit up to an awaiting tongue. Teeth easily tear through the fruits’ delicate flesh and sweetness explodes across tastebuds. Juice pools in the webbed skin between fingers and cascades down chins, dripping lusciously onto bare chests.
When the carnage is done and all that remains in the bowl is pulp floating around in a shallow pool of juice, eyes meet in recognition of what just occurred. Hands with juice still dripping down fingers are bashfully held up. Smiles are sheepishly exchanged, but the wider they get, the easier it becomes to take in the teeth littered with dark seeds and skins, and soon whatever self-consciousness existed is erased by self-indulgent laughter. Moving on.
Swim trunks are pulled on and a bikini is changed into. Yoga mats are rolled out poolside. Child’s pose, cat-cow, cobra, sun salutations, down dog. The sun rises higher in the sky, sending its merciless rays down to elicit sweat from pores that then drips and glistens along elasticized muscles. Crescent lunge, warrior two, half moon, chair pose. The sun’s heat is now so potent it might as well be emanating from within and the bodies, with no other recourse, embody its energetic pull and play with the strength of its force to bend into more positions. Chin stands, hurdlers, arm balances. Heart openers, inversions, binds. Savasana.
The mind turns gooey like viscous honey, collapsing the distance between mental perceptions and physical reality. Boundaries have been dissolved and, momentarily, a clarity reconciles everything into just one thing, the same way a leaf absorbs all color to reflect only green.
By now, the sound of the waves crashing nearby is unignorable. Towels, sunscreen, sunglasses, and a book are bundled up into arms that feel a little looser. Lighter legs traverse the short distance to the beach and walk along the shore, overriden by a terrain of pebbles that have been smoothed and molded by centuries underwater. Finally the right spot is found. Items are plopped down, sunscreen is spread white and thin along limbs, and then feet are planted firmly in the white foam pooled at the water’s edge.
From a few yards away on the garden terrace, the ocean’s current appeared to be fast-moving and the waves hitting the shore sounded like a roar. But up close the water laps invitingly around ankles and a sense of calm cuts through every act of motion. The glittering sea rises and falls along the length of the coastline and stretches all the way to the distant horizon. A seagull squawks and lands atop the water’s surface, bobbing along with the calm blue-green waters.
And the bodies, now fully submerged and dependent on their natural buoyancy, switch between floating tranquilly or easily slicing through the water to swim from one point to another. They dive under a small wave, surrendering themselves to its toil, where all that can be heard is sand hissing as it gets lifted and swirled by the force of the water’s movement. It’s almost indulgent to trust one’s self to an entity that sculpts boulders, sinks ships, and has altered the course of history–– but only a force with deeply destructive potential can be capable of awakening that special spark of life that lies dormant in winter but, in its wholesome simplicity, is sustained by nothing more than dreams of flowers reaching for sunrays and a sea expanding farther than time itself. When the heads resurface the only immediate sounds are that of deep breathing and the formless noise of water lapping against skin.
The two bodies make their way out and throw themselves onto the towels, tired in the best way, like leaving a beloved relative’s house with a belly full of precious foods, head lolling against the car window. In this case, the sea has pleasantly softened skin, salted lips, and lodged grains of sand into long, bovine lashes. Before drifting into an all-encompassing sleep, the mouth of one body is playfully brought down to the other’s bare, sand-dusted breast. Into the thin slice of air between the two heads, words powerful enough to cause blush-hued cheeks are smilingly whispered, making the world big and small at the same time.
On the bike ride home from the xiringuito later, the difference between last night and tomorrow morning has become negligible. Even so, an awareness of great things at work1 pulses through the night air and flexes its power over the allure of sleep. Wind rushes past, cooling sweaty temples and moving fast as light through streaking hair. Stars, breaking through the thin tendrils of grey clouds languidly floating by, sparkle like diamonds against an endless black. They’re joined together in a sprawling mass, weighing down the sky and gently settling on bare shoulders.
Spurred by the taste of cazalla and beer still lingering heavily on tastebuds, memories of the preceding day surge forth. Scenes of the sun’s warm glow, fruit-stained fingers, sweat-dotted muscles, and shells artfully arranged up and down a sea-glistened back dance in the mind’s eye. One of those days when thoughts quiet as the whims of the world reverberate through the heart and animate the senses. Even now, legs pumping, the wheels of the bike whirring, the visual periphery a blur, the body is nothing more than a vessel channeling the energy of the warm summer night.
Time slows down, everything is in abundance, and all that’s left to do is return to bed, get close to a lover’s body, absorb each other’s body heat, mix sweat with sweat, and share all there is to share.2
adapted from the Mary Oliver line “…the sense of the great work being done through the grass where I stood scarcely trembled” in her book Long Life. (that i saw on Tumblr lol)
basically this entire thing, especially this last line, is inspired by All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami