Allow Me a Moment

 Everything looks like goodbye. Everywhere I turn I have to bid farewell to the life I have lived for a year. I should be a pro by now, having said hello and goodbye to Sweden every June and August for years on end. I found that the endless summer days really did come to an end, and it was with sated mind I would board the plane back to Singapore, hoarding the smells of rain-wet grass and visions of bright evenings in my memory. I feel I haven't had enough summer just yet--there was a blur of activity for a while--TESOL, karate, driver's license--and those two weeks in America robbed me of high summer in the north, which is arguably the finest time of the year.

My mind is not quite sated.
I am not filled to the brim with lazy days and slow evenings when I can watch the clouds burn in the west. I don't have nearly enough mosquito bites. I haven't once gone swimming in tea-brown waters or unhooked the smallest minnow from my pole. I haven't seen the elves dance in misty arcs across the fields in early morning. I haven't reveled in the freedom that summer affords. And I am the less for it.