Almost...

Once upon a time, there was a little boy.  The boy was full of energy, never sitting still, always running around until he almost drove his mother crazy.  In the midst of all this movement, he would often stop and think about the things around him. 

 One day, when he was riding his tricycle down the sidewalk,  he stopped and looked around.  Many of the trees on his street had these pretty purple flowers on them, and the flowers would fall down and land on the sidewalk and on the street and sometimes on the boy.  He would try to catch them while he was riding as fast as he could on his tricycle.  Sometimes he caught them and he would throw them in the air and turn around to watch them fall on to the sidewalk.  

He began to think as he sat there staring at all these flowers, in the trees and on the ground and stuck to the wheels of his tricycle.  He wondered why the flowers were there.  He thought and he thought, but he could not figure out why the flowers were there, and why they fell, and why they came home with him on his wheels and on the bottoms of his shoes.  

He decided he would ask his mommy when he got home, so he rode as fast as he could.

When he got home, he saw his mommy on the porch and ran to her.

"Mommy, Mommy, I have a question," he said, breathing heavily from riding as fast as he could.

"Okay.  Let's go in the house.  But first take off your shoes so you don't get flowers on the floor."

The boy took off his shoes and followed his mommy into the house.  She got him a glass of water and sat down at the kitchen table.  She patted the chair next to her, and the boy ran over and sat down.  He took a long drink of water.

"So what's your question?"

The boy sat for a moment. "Well... Why are there all those purple flowers out there? They're pretty, but what are they for?"

"Hmmmm... Let me see..." His mommy sat and put on her thinking face. "There are two reasons."

"What?" the boy asked, excited that his mommy had not one but two answers to his question.

"The first reason is so we can look at them and notice how beautiful they are, and that makes us happy.  Doesn't it make you happy to see all those flowers?"

"Yeah," the boy said. "But not when they stick to my feet.  And sometimes they smell bad."

His mommy laughed.  "The second reason is so that we know that summer is almost here.  That's the most important reason."

The boy thought about the most important reason.  Summer to the boy meant many things: no going to school and staying up late, sometimes even until nine o'clock; going to the beach and sitting in the sand and making sand castles and going in the water where his daddy would swing the boy into the waves and hold him on his shoulders so he was the tallest; it meant his birthday on July 24th and presents and cake and his friends; it meant swimming in the new pool that he watched the men build a few months ago and then sitting in the sunshine to dry; it meant going to the library as much as he wanted because his mommy would always take him if he asked.  

The boy's eyes lit up at the thought of summer.

"That is the most important reason," the boy nearly shouted.

His mommy smiled and said, "Yes it is.  But now it's time for bed.  Go get ready."

The boy walked through the kitchen toward the hall.  Before he got to the hall, he stopped at the door and looked through the screen at the pretty purple flowers falling on his street.

It was almost summer.

***

The boy was me at four.  

Twenty-two years later, I am still just as excited for summer, for the many reasons the boy gave and for many more.

Here I am, at twenty-six (almost twenty-seven), elated at the thought of two months of total freedom.  The time goes much faster than it used to go, but those two months are still glorious.

Now if you'll excuse me: I have to go watch some pretty purple flowers falling on my street.