this summer, i'm gonna be cool
sun-kissed sweaty skin / night's sweet breeze / my friends and me
hello :) ! sahara here ! this is gonna be an entirely different kind of post. enjoy this silly series of journal entry about coolness, friendship, summer, and whatever-more. consider this the first of (probably) many random entries. i hope you can be fond of the things i want to share.
it’s a rash on my neck, I swear!
June 13th, 2024
All four windows are down, I’m sitting in the backseat of my friends’ old Subaru Impreza while she’s passing all the cars slower than us on the highway. We’re listening to Oblivion by Grimes. The sun hasn’t stopped touching me since I stepped foot outside. It’s 5:30pm now but at 2:30 we all met at a Thai spot to eat lunch together, the rest of our time was filled with olive-oil and rosemary ice cream covered in Hawaiian Himalayan grey salt (which was absolutely divine). After eating, we went to a bookstore where they all sat around me as I read them poetry.
"I’ve asked myself a million times over what it means to create friends from nothing. This is what life is, being in the bare sun, i’ve almost forgotten. I’m starting to think I’m cool, cool enough to wear sunglasses. Twenty years down the road and for the first time I’m feeling it.”
a journal entry I wrote while in the backseat of that Subaru
some of the best matcha ever.
June 19th, 2024
“This is a good matcha.”
My friend Nicole (also known as-)
and I are catching up on life since our last hangout.
“Really?! I’m glad you like it. I think this is the best place for a matcha.” I take a sip of mine and look around, letting myself sink into the baby blue chair.
“No dude, I love it. They are hard to get right too so…” she takes another sip, really judging the character of her drink. “Yeah, it’s good.”
We give a small laugh to the oddities of life. A conversation sparks, we tell each other everything that comes to mind. New friendships, our school, home life, lovers, everything. As we talk and talk and talk, the sun brightens the area around us, we drink our sweet green tea. Matcha mustache’s forming on our upper lip as we begin to discuss our own writings.
I tell her to think about the weather and she tells me to not give too many details.
I tell her i’m excited for a beach day and she tells me she can’t wait.
I tell her i think this what summer is, two friends enjoying a drink and she tells me i can catch the dreamscape on paper if i keep writing.
celebration!
June 20th, 2024
Summer solstice.
The first day of summer was celebrated by ditching class to enjoy the longest day of the year on a sailboat. Setting sail to the port of downtown San Diego, maintaining the deck. We all share a drink and cheer for our futures. All these motions, breaking the waves, sea foam of thoughts surrounding the boat. I feel myself float in the air, my inherited buoyant nature from growing up by the beach. I write as I watch; the sunset, all that summer is. I write until I want to join my friends again in their laughter. Side by side we remain, mesmerized by the last bit of spring coming to its end.
“this is so nice.” I say aloud, sitting on a bean bag, a blanket covering my legs from dusks fresh winds. The sun has just set and not a word has been spoken for minutes.
“it is.” i’m met with a smile.
“Sentiment of all my long days, the solstice embrace, in the light of the sun, I always see another face.”
except from a journal entry I wrote on the boat
the waves almost took me out to sea
June 22nd, 2024
I know what I want, for the first time in my life.
This summer, I’m gonna be cool.
Blissful even, a word I don’t think i’ve used before.
“I can feel it in my chest, something so bright it burns at the sides of my body. I can peel back small bits of skin and release the light within me. It’s warm and welcoming, in the dark nights where the stars shine above our heads I can lead the way home. With the moths coming towards me and every good thing before us. Hand in hand, let’s walk the sand. The summer before us is not yet to end. The midst of my dreams seeping into reality. I create the world around me, I just didn’t know it then.”
excerpt from a journal entry
this summer, i’m gonna be…
June 24th, 2024
“I’ve found every adventure I take with a friend, or friends instills within me a profound sense of life no matter how seemingly small.”
excerpt from my notes app
Summer is the feeling of the sunburn right before you take a nap, summer is the way the wind holds your face.
Summer is so much more, its…
“the first bite into a peach, the juice dripping from your chin. But you don’t wipe it clean because you know your friend is gonna wipe it for you.”
transcript from a voice memo I recorded while driving with the windows down listening to “Brazil” by Declan McKenna
This is whats summers all about, the feeling in your chest like you can’t breathe. Bonfires and the soft smell of sunscreen. Intoxicated by authenticity. Reverberation of your chest from the bass bumping in the backseat. Nothing beats the feeling of your body being rocked to bed with a rotating fan kicking the beads of water off your forehead. Sensations of sweat, the “lust for life.” Your first bite of fruit. My first bite of ice cream.
I’ll step outside my room with a smile from now on; I know the day is bright which also means it’s full of potential. I think I’m gonna be cool today. I think I’m gonna be cool for the rest of the summer. I’ll put on my sunglasses and walk outside. Chat with a stranger, ask my sister to dance with me on a street. Swim in a lake and hold myself accountable for the sunburn.
This summer I’m gonna be cool, basking in the glory of my own love repurposed.
Venice beach, California baby. (you can call me the sand girl)
Luv n Hugz
this is so cool i adore this idea