Childhood Summer Day: Inspiration from a Deck of Playing Cards

It's not quite 10:00 am and I have been up for 5 hours. A morning run. Some miscellaneous chores. I am now working at my favorite coffee shop.

I'm focused. Catching up on emails. Tasks. Deciding how I want this rare meeting-free day to unfold. My neighborhood coffee shop, usually crowded by a viral TikTok claiming it one of the best in the city, is quiet.

A mom walks in with two elementary school-aged boys who take the table next to me. The younger one holds a card carrier and I steal a glance, wondering if Pokémon has seeped down through the generations. Instead, I see a Joker. Standard deck.

They begin playing a card game. Quietly. Politely. "Mom said we can't yell." 

Then the older one says, "don't hover; you're hovering," and I realize they are playing Spit or some similar game that I haven’t thought about in years and unexpectedly I am hit with a wave of nostalgia so strong my eyes water. 

I stop my work and observe.

"I'm not hovering." 

A beat. Will the older one double down?

"Okay fine, let's play," he says. 

They go for a moment longer until there is another conflict. Whose hand hit the cards first. 

"My hand is under." 

I look and silently agree. 

"No, mine is," says the other boy who looks to mom, standing in line for her coffee.

They're at an impasse. Neither moves their hand. 

The older looks back again. Mom is busy. 

"Let's just do it again," says the older one. His hand is on top. 

"No, if my fingers are below your fingers, I win," says the other. This feels irrefutable. 

For the slightest of moments, I consider inserting myself. The older relents. They continue the game.

Suddenly, I am not at the coffee shop across from my apartment. I don't have a job or a to-do list. Suddenly, I am whisked back to an elementary school gym and I am 12. It is "Summer Band," a week or so long program in the summer for band kids held at the elementary school and taught by one of the band directors. 

We are on break and someone has brought a deck of cards. We cycle through the classics. 

Suddenly, I'm remembering the short-lived moment where we brought bouncy balls, launching them to the ceiling during our lunch break, losing them amongst the bleachers.

I don't know when I last played cards, and nevertheless I am overcome. 

Suddenly, I find myself yearning for simplicity. For a kid's summer. For a day with no agenda. I want to climb a tree and I want to play rundown with the neighborhood kids. I want to build a Pokémon deck and claim—with no grounds—that my brothers cheated when they win. I want to lay on my bedroom floor with a blank book and spend the afternoon writing and illustrating a story from scratch. 

I want to play piano and skip ahead in the lesson book. I want to play Horse on the basketball court, and I want to do something creative. I want to remember that little girl who turned soda pop tabs into finger puppets and created entire worlds for them. I want to find the butter container I repurposed into their carrying case. 

I don't want to know what time it is. I don't want to care. I want to spend the whole day outside, and I want to be dragged in at sunset with grass-stained knees and knotted hair. I want to be met post-shower with a plate of sliced cucumbers from my dad's garden and peanut butter celery sticks, and no raisins because I still haven't fully grown into that taste.

About once a summer, I go to the beach. After growing up in a landlocked state, it feels silly to be a train ride from the Atlantic and not take advantage. I pack some snacks. A book. Sunscreen. It's a fun annual tradition. "Beach day," I say to no one in particular. 

But what if I started another annual tradition? Childhood Summer Day. A day where my phone stays on airplane mode, and my watch remains on my desk. A day where I refresh myself on the rules of Spit and kick a soccer ball around the park even though I'm not "good at it." A day where I turn off the constant chatter of responsibility and errands and should haves and need tos. A day where I exist outside of obligation. A day where waking up and chasing my joy is the task. A day where following my excitement is enough. 

The kids next to me start to bicker again. This time, mom is here. She diffuses. I smile. 

I think of my young self, and I think of my mom, juggling the three of us and I send her mental love. I think of my stuffed animals and the movie Snow Dogs, and I feel tugged by the way all our past lives hold space for the adults we become. I turn back to my job. To my tasks. To my unread emails. But I feel a little lighter now. 

When the boys stand to leave, I see a quarter on the bench where they were and pick it up to hand back to the youngest. He smiles at me. He is wearing a Pokémon shirt.