Slide

The Goo Goo Dolls played a Tiny Desk Concert on NPR and I was transported back to summer 1998, the fragrance of Cucumber Melon body spray flooding my nostrils and a strawberry Twizzler sticking to my molars. I saw the sunshine streaking the stained glass heron window in my childhood bathroom. The sun always came in from a skylight in the shower, where the maple leaves filtered it green and white.

I remember the way the front yard looked, the lace of the lily-of-the-valley between the Chinese Lantern flowers, weaving themselves between the wild chives that grew.

Walks to the mini-mart to get Coke Slushies with my cousins, when that seemed like an odyssey before it dissipated into something so banal as buying a pack of American Spirit cigarettes like it was a chore.

There I was in, back in 1998. The world an entirely new place, the damp smell of summertime and my heart, that eight-year-old organ, so new and unscarred.