Flowers and friendship bracelets
Thoughts from a hot summer week
[Jump to this week’s song on repeat.]
The windows of our Salt Lake City apartment didn’t open and in the summer it was so hot and dusty you wouldn’t want to open them anyway. We relied heavily (too heavily, imo) on the air conditioning. Ben runs hot and I run cold, so we were always battling over the thermostat. It’s a battle I usually lost, so I spent most of the year in thick socks and sweaters, disconnected from whatever the weather was doing outside.
That’s been a small but meaningful change in our day-to-day since moving to Bellingham: no air conditioning. Most houses up here don’t have it, it doesn’t usually get hot enough to need it, and so neither do we. I, for one, have been loving it. It’s been so nice to sit around at night with the windows open, getting a light breeze, smelling the pine trees around us, hearing the sounds of the neighborhood.1
But, I’ll admit, it was a little toasty this week with temps in the 80s and dew points in the 60s. I opened every window and door first thing when I woke up, trying to draw in some cool morning air before the sun came up, then closed all the shades by 11 or so to keep the worst of the heat out. It was sticky. Poor Otis was mostly horizontal all week. I don’t hate it — a perk of remote work is I can turn my camera off and no one has to know I’m wearing booty shorts and a sports bra to the meeting — but I had very little brain space to write after work. So I just wanted to share a little confluence of moments lately that made me smile.
By Thursday, the heat started to break. I was still sweaty, but I was at least able to think about things other than how sweaty I was. Ben was working on his bike in the garage and I was on the couch with Otis, eating a popsicle and just kind of staring off into space, noticing what drifted in through the windows — grill smells from one neighbor, jazz from another, and the sounds of the neighbor kids playing outside.
Their shouts and laughter and arguments and songs made me think about how similar it sounded to my own childhood summers. Then, a group chat I have with a couple of grade school friends (dormant since December, when I was home for Christmas and we were trying to coordinate a time to see each other) suddenly sprang to life with a pixelated video one of their mom’s had just unearthed: us at 13 or so doing a choreographed dance to the Space Jam theme song (a certified BANGER).
I watched it about 20 times and we all laughed about it in the group chat, but it felt so serendipitous to get that text when I was just sitting there thinking about that same group of friends, back when we were just about that age. This was before the age of heavily-scheduled and supervised summers. I, and most of my friends, had older siblings who were often tasked with “watching” us but in the years before we had to get jobs, we spent our summers mostly roaming free. At least that’s how I remember it.
When we weren’t recording ourselves dancing, we were running around the neighborhood doing whatever kids do — climbing trees, playing games, riding our bikes, laying around picking grass, sharing secrets and talking about crushes. Sometimes we’d walk to a nearby candy store or video store.2 When it was too hot, we’d run through a sprinkler or hole up in someone’s basement and watch TV, play N64, or crowd around the family computer. Occasionally we’d get dropped off at the mall but we didn’t have much money to spend, we’d just kind of walk around or use a Gold C coupon to go to a movie.
Most often we were in the park across the street from all our houses, only running inside to raid the pantry or grab a Fla-Vor-Ice. Most nights we’d be out there until dinner. If I missed my cue to go home — the street lights coming on — my mom would walk to the edge of the park and yell my name as loud as she could (mortifying) until I came running. Some nights I’d sit on the front stoop with my dad, chiseling away at a tiny carton of frozen orange juice. Most nights I’d pass out, completely exhausted. What a life. Compare that to now when sometimes I lay in bed and my legs literally ache from lack of use.
The day after the heat broke, Friday morning, I was bringing the garbage out and my eye caught on a small ziplock bag on our front steps. I was immediately annoyed and thought, Who’s throwing trash on our stoop!?
I bent to pick it up and my irritation was softened by the sight of colorful beads and stickers and a message written in thick blue marker. I turned the bag over and read: From your neighbors. My grinch heart grew 3 sizes in that moment. The little girls I’d heard the night before had made us friendship bracelets and I’ve been wearing mine since, hoping to catch one of them when I’m outside so I can say thank you.
They are likely only interested in us because they want to play with Otis — I remember the way we kept an eye out for a newfie in our neighborhood, I can still picture that dog but couldn’t tell you anything about its owners — but that’s ok. I’m still touched by their thoughtfulness, even if it is dog-motivated.
A couple of weeks ago, we were out on a walk and I was saying to Ben that it feels so comfortable here. The neighborhood is so different from our SLC neighborhood. There are always people out in their yards and there’s just more of a sense of lives being lived. I was mid-sentence when a little girl (different from the one who made the friendship bracelets) ran up to us and handed me a flower from her yard.
I haven’t connected with most of the girlhood discourse lately (with exceptions) — but these little girls! They’re creating these gentle moments of magic! They’re making me feel old and young and grateful! They’re reminding me that this isn’t just a place I live, I’m part of a neighborhood now, even if, for the moment, I’m just that neighbor lady with the cute dog. These small gifts — some beads and flower — have meant so much.
I’ve written about how lonely I was in SLC and how I’m determined to change that here. I’m not looking to befriend these children, obviously, but these kind and thoughtful and unabashed gestures have made me feel welcome. They’ve been a good reminder to stay open to what others are willing to give and to be unafraid of making earnest gestures myself.
I hope summer is going well for you, wherever you are, and that maybe this encourages you to do something kind for someone in your community this week. You don’t know how much it might mean!
Related reading:
This love letter to friendships.
This week’s song on repeat
(Find the whole playlist here.)
I deleted my tiktok (brag) so I’m months late to this. I was introduced to it by this tweet, which is honestly the best way it could’ve been brought to my attention. My only problem with this is it should be at least 2 minutes longer, in true 90s fashion.
Excluding the three small dogs up the block who spend most of their lives barking, I don’t care for them.
On the corner by my house there was one of those cursed buildings that seems to turn over businesses every couple of years. For a brief period it was a video store — Video A-Go-Go. It smelled like what I now know is weed and I still laugh remembering when one of my friends accidentally wandered into the back room full of dirty movies and we all squealed and ran out.
Are you also a former Wisconsinite living in Bellingham?!