Vacation Bliss

August: the perfect month for vacation. There's even something about the name August that suggests sunshine and laziness. It is a month of days off, packing the car, and stocking the cooler. We visit the farmer's market near home to gather small, ripe orange colored tomatoes, buoyant blueberries, and the perfect Maryhill peach. We visit the markets further from home to marvel over the tiny, just baked fruit pies, loganberries and gooseberries that were just picked, crabs and oysters from the waters just outside our view.
We sleep in and drink coffee on the porch. We eat walnut bread toast with homemade cherry jam alongside diced donut peaches. We read the New Yorker in our pyjamas and drink another cup of coffee. We walk on the beach, stare at the water and the birds, and ride our bikes. We paddle through smooth waters and wonder, later, why our shoulders don't seem to hurt at all. We eat mocha almond fudge ice cream under the hot summer sun. We take naps and showers in the middle of the day. We toast. We toast again.
I smooth my wet hair back into a perfect ponytail and dress quickly, anxious only to make it to town in time to drink a glass of bubbly outside as the sun sets and a brisk wind begins to blow. I buy a sun hat and wear only lip gloss and brown mascara underneath its wide black brim. I scrape sand from between my toes, eat handfuls of salted nuts before dinner, and drink rose. I browse creaky bookstore shelves and dream of the books I could read if I never had to return to work.
I want more and more. I want to live at the beach, I don't want to ever have to return to real life. It's the sign of a great month and a perfect vacation to desire like this. To want more time so badly it hurts. To be so relaxed and happy it seems it just might be possible to stay here, forever, just like this.