The summers
(Baonghean) - Sometimes, I absentmindedly miss the passing of another summer. The harsh sunlight is about to be gone, the sunlight that, after a long winter and a wet spring, keeps shining brightly, making me feel that the roads I often walk on suddenly become strange, as if I were walking for the first time...
One summer, I - a skinny, dark-skinned girl - was sent by my parents to my maternal home. I was both happy and shy when I joined the country children, with games that I had just learned for the first time such as Chinese checkers, horse jumping... How interesting it was to sneak around, to escape the controlling eyes of adults to go out in the sun. One summer, my mother was scared out of her wits when she discovered me staring at a snake lying coiled on a pile of dry, rotten leaves in the garden. It lay so still that I thought it was a small coil of barbed wire. After that time, my mother was determined not to let me go out into the garden anymore, and our garden had so many interesting things. I was also determined not to understand the strange prohibitions of adults. I remember, never before had the determination to become an adult been so strong in me. I had to become an adult to have the right to do what I liked and freely scold the children...
But anyway, those were interesting summers. Summer in my city was completely different from when I was in the countryside. After the school year ended, there was no chance to meet and play with my friends at school. My family lived in an apartment, so all summer, except for the time when we were reviewing our lessons, my neighbors and I only had a small narrow hallway to display our wares and play trading. Finally, bored with the pile of money cut from old newspapers, we turned to drawing. My mother often looked at my drawings with a puzzled expression: “What are you drawing? Why are all the girls in your drawings the same?”. I was extremely surprised because a whole good story was told in my drawings that adults still could not understand. When I grew up, looking back at those funny drawings, I could still “read” my story, but I also saw that my mother was right, I had drawn very funny drawings. But even though the hallway was narrow, those worry-free summers were my happy summers…
I only truly felt the sadness of summer in my last year of primary school. The separation that I had never thought I would face before made me shed a lot of tears. So, for the first time, I knew how to wish I could stay young forever, wishing time would stop so that I could be with my dear friends forever. And it wasn’t just me, that summer farewell, every child in my class 5A had red eyes. Some even held handkerchiefs to wipe their tears. My homeroom teacher, her gentle eyes looking at each childish face – at that time, everyone’s eyes were swollen. She said: “Don’t cry anymore”, but her voice was trembling at that time… All the anger, all the mischief had disappeared. We clearly felt that none of us wanted to be apart, because we had been a part of each other’s lives for the past 5 years…
Each summer passes by… This year I am in 8th grade, ready to become an “adult”! Each summer of mine is filled with so many beautiful memories, memories that are deeply imprinted in my heart. Thank you for the summer sunshine that has illuminated my soul, illuminated my heart, so that I can grow up, mature and live a good life…
Essays byVan Trinh
