I’m Completely Chilled Out

I n May, school is in an odd state of flux, simultaneously grinding to a halt and picking up pace for the gauntlet of finals, cumulative projects, and standardized tests that daunt sojourners on the scenic footpath to summer. Spring sports have their playoffs (or whatever that equivalent may be); clubs go to their state conventions.

In other words, May is busy, but somehow it doesn't feel busy. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the promise of three months of lusciously uninterrupted free time.

Look at me. Extracurriculars have kept me busy enough that I've been in school only six days during the past two weeks. This week, I will only be there for one before I jet off to Olympia again. And as if the makeup work wasn't fret-inducing enough, the AP exam is lurking on the horizon.

But somehow, by some miracle, I'm completely chilled out.

I suppose it's because I'm looking forward to summer - yeesh, this is my last summer break as a high school student! I can't wait to go kayaking, to jet through some river or other and generate a bit of breeze on my face, to tumble out of my seat and get wet from head to toe on a steaming day. I'm also looking forward to getting up an hour later, eating breakfast out on the patio, raiding the library for a bikebasketful of books to devour one by one on the hammock between sips of lemonade - the small, everyday things that don't require proximity to a navigable body of water.

But the truth is, a few days after I kiss my junior year good-bye, I'll be off to Girls State - which is going to be a blast, but probably won't involve kayaks. After that, there's a family trip, followed by my little brother's birthday, and then I'll be dumped off in front of a wide expanse of summertime and told to utilize it wisely - while it lasts.

Still, my SAT-tortured brain insists on picturing the summer as an endless Eden of relaxing - but never boring - free time. And some of said hypothetical free time's golden glow insists on permeating the month of May.

In many of my classes these days, the teachers don't even bother turning the lights on; they simply open the windows. If I turn my head to look out one, I see a Technicolor-blue sky and grass of an equally saturated green hue. And even as I continue to work out the equation of an ellipse with foci at such-and-such, part of my mind is out there romping. I work very slowly in May, but the work somehow seems easier.

I promised I wouldn't say anything about a certain test which I was to take this month. I won't. But last Saturday, for some unknown reason, I blew a perfectly fine morning in an unfamiliar library filling in little circles with a number 2 pencil.

Later that day, I went down to my grandparents' farm. One of their cows had just given birth, and the resulting damp, awkward creature was happily springing around the pasture. The sun was behind a huge mass of clouds, but the sky was mostly blue.

It was then that it occurred to me that the library I had been in that morning had no windows. The lights were yellow and flickered slightly. It felt like one of those peevishly early mornings in the middle of winter.

But here, in this field, under the open sky, it was most definitely May.