Today is a special holiday for 20-Something Bloggers. Every year, this community has a Blog Swap. I was partnered up with Ginger, an awesome actress, singer, and writer who is currently living the dream in California. Ginger's blog, A Taste of Ginger, is artfully written and hilarious....go check it out! Our assignment was to write about Summer and that is exactly what she gave you!
Summer is nearly over, and that’s how it always happens, isn’t it –a flash in the pan– but I think about it all year until it comes back around again. I belong to the summer – It birthed me. Like Laura, I’m a Leo; I was born in August and feel at home in the fire of the sun. Without it, I’m a dud; I can barely conjure the energy to offer a smile when there’s no solar power to get me charged!
Oh – you’re probably wondering who “I” am, since I’m obviously not your usual lovely hostess. I’m Ginger, a Kentucky girl living in Los Angeles for the past two-and-a-half years, a sweet yet rebellious city-dwelling country girl who can’t go a day without making some sort of attempt at “art,” be it acting, singing, writing, drawing, (I guess Living Artfully counts as well). I thrive on change (I just dyed my hair from blonde to black before bed last night to, I don’t know, set something in motion?) and that’s why summer intrigues 
me, perhaps: it’s a season set apart from the mechanition of the rest of the year...when anything can happen.
The word itself uplifts me and makes me want to play the song “Magic” by the Cars and dance around wearing something yellow and eating popsicles. It gets me nostalgic for all the things I’ve experienced in Junes, Julys, and Augusts past. I feel nostalgia for that summer crush I always had, for that week of church camp in the mountains of Kentucky, Sno-cones, babysitters, staying up late, frogs at night, and a frosty movie theater when the heat outside is unbearable.
Say “summer” and I will automatically smell grass and dirt and chlorine; I will remember making crowns of dandelions, my body covered in bruises and blackness rubbed off of the trampoline. I loved, in the summer, to get as dirty as I possibly could throughout the day – it was like a challenge – and then to take the most thorough bath at night: it was like being reborn! But my nostalgia also extends to memories that aren’t even my own: the Saved by the Bell kids at the Malibu Sands Beach Club, the Beach Boys singing “Fun, Fun, Fun,” summer anthems like the Macarena or “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies, eighties movies starring John Cusack driving accross the country to meet a girl.
My nostalgia sometimes gets a little out of hand.
But we mustn’t dwell only on summers past, because it’s only mid-August now and we still have a little time left to get dirty! These days I’ve traded in the grass stains and chlorine for sand ground into my skin and sweat from yoga and biking down to the bluffs to see the sun sink over the Pacific. Maybe I moved here partly because almost all year, it's reminiscent of those things I love about summer: the blue sky, the sense of adventure and freedom, and the feeling that you aren’t beholden to anyone but yourself.
Remember how, the moment the bell rang on the last day of school, you felt suddenly unencumbered, like a kettle boiling? You knew that for the next couple of months, you were free from homework and popularity contests and activities you didn’t really want to participate in but had to? You were at last alone and free to be yourself. That’s how I feel nearly all the time these days, and I don’t know if it’s L.A. or if it’s just that I’ve reached a certain age, or if I’ve been inspired by certain books or people. All I know is, I want to live every day like it’s the first day of summer, and that is what I wish for Laura, and for you, her loyal fans! Go forth and explore, my friends – and if you enjoyed these ramblings, you can follow my adventures at Taste of Ginger.
Now that you know how awesome she is, go check out my sing-a-long guest post on A Taste of Ginger.
Yay! I also linked to your blog on Facebook!
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