In response to the NYT article ‘What Does Summer Taste Like?’
What does summer taste like? A question I’ve thought about all my life as I’ve combed through the details of my summers, trying to remember what I often forget.
The summer time is more than just a new session, as for most it is remembered by the sounds, smells, and tastes that make up that time. For some, summer is defined by the taste of corn, M.M.B.s, or hot gatorade, but for me, it always tasted like the salty sea.
At the end of each summer I leave with my suitcase packed and tears running down my cheeks, thinking not of that salty sea, but instead the faces of my family.
Back in NYC, it’s easy to remember only the rustles of the trees, the chimes’ melodic beat, and the taste of that salty sea, wanting to forget the pain of not being able to see my family. Yet as I write poetry of my summers spent in Türkiye, with every thought of the sea, I can only imagine my cousin and me jumping against the crashing tides, I can only hear the chimes’ pulse by the memory of my great aunt’s house, I can only feel the sun’s hot beams as I think of the hours spent talking with my best friend on the balcony.
The memories of summer used to easily get hidden by the tastes and sounds, but now as I get older, it gets more difficult to forget what I always wanted to remember, my friends and family.
