The roads were heavy with people and cars this morning. I sat for a bit at the light, the fifth car in line. My breakfast place was filled, only one booth was empty. Down the street, at the Pancake Man, the lot was filled. As I was stopped at a red light on the way home, I watched well-dressed couples, most of them elderly, go into church. When I passed by the golf course, I saw golfers at every hole. The sun has brought the world alive.

On sunny days my mother sent us outside. We weren’t allowed to waste a good day. The little kids stayed close to home. My sisters used to haul out their dolls and sit and play on the steps. They always changed their voices for doll-speak. My brother sometimes went fishing. He’d jump on his bike and ride all the way to Horn Pond in the next town over. He’d catch perch, carp and catfish and be gone all day. I went with him a couple of times but mostly he went alone. I’d ride my bike a lot. I loved the joy of  riding down hills or bicycling with no hands on the handlebars, a trick which took me a long time to learn. I used to cross my arms and pedal down the street. I always felt a bit smug.

Being outside riding my bike on sunny days made my face tan and fill with freckles, which were a gift from my mother. My father, working in the yard, used to tan the darkest of all of us. I remember his left arm was always darker than his right. He called it his trucker’s tan.

Warm weather is coming. I’m breaking out the sandals and the sunscreen. The sweatshirt goes back into the drawer.

Most of our family vacations were made up of day trips. Our parents couldn’t afford to go away, but we never noticed. A day at the beach is just as much fun close to home as far away. My mother would pack a huge lunch, fill the tartan jug and load up the towels, blankets and toys. When we were little, the lunches were sandwiches, chips, fruits and cookies. When we were older, my mother started making my favorite of all picnic foods, peppers and eggs, and she’d bring along rolls because peppers and eggs are best eaten in rolls. Those peppers and eggs were stored in a Tupperware sort of container, and my mother would sit on a blanket and make the sandwiches. You couldn’t make them ahead of time. The rolls would get soggy. My mother never made enough. We always ran out of peppers and eggs.

One vacation we took with another family was in Vermont. It was so long ago my sister, now a grandmother, was young enough not to be walking yet. We stayed in a huge old Victorian house right on the road, a small two lane country road. A porch wrapped around the front of the house. I remember my sister sitting in one of those bouncy chairs on the porch most of the time. The house had a crank phone in the kitchen, and I got a small shock up my arm when I used it. The lake was across the road. It was shallow only near the shore and really deep beyond it. I don’t know how big the lake was, but I thought it was enormous. I remember seeing fish as I rode on my father’s back to the deep part of the lake. The backyard of the old house ended at a huge hill with a pine tree forest just beyond it. From the top of the hill we could see the whole world.