ManicDDaily

Watermelon Time

Despite the date, despite the heat, it hasn’t felt like true summer to me yet.  Partly this has been because of the lack of extended vacation time – that purposeful indolence that I always associated with summer as a child; partly this vagueness results from the general disengagement with time that seems to go hand in hand with growing older.  As you age, time seems to slip through your fingers like extremely gritty sand–with a fair amount of discomfort (itch/scratch/burn) but too fast to truly grasp.

And partly, I realized last night, my disconnect from this summer has  stemmed from an inexplicable lack of watermelon.

Where has it been?  Why haven’t I bought any?

I’m not exactly sure, but I suspect it has to do with too much rushing about, too much uncertainty.  The purchase of a whole watermelon is a commitment.

Whatever.  I had my first pieces of the season very very late last night and finally July felt somehow real, a part of my personal mosaic of “July”,  one more member of the conga line of continuum.

I love watermelon.  In a childhood without much A/C, it represented a hand-held cooling system.

And the piece I had last night (in a similarly unairconditioned, thirsty state) was just as sweet, delicious, cooling as I always remembered it.   I remembered a lot of it – the melon was like my own red/green, seedy, crunchy/soggy madeleine.  The inner fruit self-moistened, no tea necessary.

The “Proustian”—errr—ManicDDailean results tomorrow.

This entry was posted on July 28, 2010 at 10:25 pm and is filed under children's illustration, Uncategorized, Vicissitudes of Life. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: disconnect with time as one ages, disengagement from time, feeling like true summer, image of watermelon time, manicddaily, ManicDDaily painting of watermelon clock, nostalgia for watermelon, Proustian effect of watermelon, watermelon as a personal cooling system, watermelon madeleine