Summer is designed for relaxation. It’s after the burst of new growth of spring, but not quite time to prepare for winter.

It smells of lazy afternoons, of the freedom to do what you want. You’re allowed to let your hair down, be sweaty, but not care. Sure you smell gross after being out in the sun all day, but you’re too hot to be bothered by the heavy musk.

It smells of ocean breezes, or chlorine, or rusty hoses, any source of water you can find, try to avoid that stifling heat. Summer is light, it smells of joy and laughter as kids frolic in the delicious sunshine.

It’s that too syrupy-sweet sugar smell that hovers around you after eating countless popsicles of too many different flavors, your lips a weird purple-brown color at this point.

Just at the height of the season, summer begins to smell of disappointment, of fear. The sudden realization that you’ll be going back to the real world soon, that you won’t have any more time for fun.

Summer, both the most freeing and most binding season of all.