“We have to live like that summer”

Trips with friends remind women of their youthful feelings. Photo: XH

Feeling free

There were mornings when I woke up before the whole house, before the weak beams of light shining through the guava trees outside the window waiting to flood into my bedroom, before everyone else in the city.

I woke up with an unfinished dream, an adventure to a foggy harbor with some guy…

I tiptoed between the sleeping houses. The city was even sleepier than me, each cycle slowly… The morning wind was heavy with moisture, I passed through the small alleys and then poured out onto the main street. I plugged in my headphones. The music was bustling, my soul was bustling, while I cycled on the crowded street.

When the music plays to the song “We must live like that summer”, I always set up a scene in the movie in which I - the main character - collapses, the camera pans slowly as I hit the concrete road…

The music plays The Summer by Josh Pyke, the screen is filled with footage of me that summer, young, laughing, riding a motorbike on the mountain pass, stopping to camp at this beach then that. Somewhere in the old footage is a sense of regret...

I steal for myself those early summer mornings, gentle and without a carefree feeling. There is no love of the early morning cooing when my son wakes up and chats with his mother. There is no hustle and bustle of rice porridge, of feeding the child, of the smell of the kitchen, of the sound of boiling water filtered in the kettle… The sound of my mother coming home from the market complaining about prices. The sound of life strangely colliding between the walls.

My own rare early mornings, when the slow-moving wheels licked each intersection. I - over 30 years old, straight back, short hair, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, told myself "I have to live like that summer" - the summer that I lived more fully than my youth and dreams.

The summer that I keep coming back to in my memory, walking under the trees of the crowded and sultry city. It is not to deny this reality or to deny myself, it is just that when I have flown, I will remember the feeling of being free in the air like that. Going where I want, meeting people I like, doing spontaneous things…

Stolen Time

When women return home, they leave their old selves somewhere outside the door, beyond the brick porch, beyond the stairs.

e4daab1609e4bcbae5f5(1).jpg — Freedom on the road. Photo: XH

They bind themselves to loves that are familiar and intimate. Perhaps in the endless hours of family life, there are people who will forget the gift they left outside the door, will never remember or have enough time to pick it up, open it, let themselves rush in, touch the scent, the memories, the sunlight, the roughness of the old days.

But there are people, like me, in order to live fully, to keep my love for life intact… I make small thefts of time. So that I can see that I am still there, young like that summer, free like that summer… So that I can savor the taste of the wind on the roads and vaguely thrill with each afternoon storm when the destination of the journey is still far away. I have generously opened countless memories into my stolen time.

Finally, at another moment, in another scene of the movie I created in my head, I put each colorful outfit into a suitcase and set off… The audience will see me walking long strides on the sand, the blue sea, the camera panning down every curve of my shoulder and arm… My hand is holding another small hand, a trusting 2-year-old companion.

We lay down next to each other on the beach… the sun was rising, a new day. Right now, after a day, I was cycling home among women like me in a hurry, I found myself wanting to live like this, like this summer, in this city and going to the beach in that scene of the movie.

I live another summer like this one!

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/minh-phai-song-nhu-mua-he-nam-ay-3156143.html