Winter-Summer Descriptions Continued

~*~

Summer:
The beach is painfully crowded; brightly colored towels are snapped open and laid down on the baking sand. Coolers are nestled in the soft dunes, opened and cold drinks produced, passed around and cracked with much hissing and popping.
Children dart back and forth through the deep green waves, squealing in delight, calling out taunts and laughing at the replies. Braver children throw themselves headfirst into the waves, vanishing beneath the glittering emerald water only to pop back up, coughing and sputtering from the mouthful of salty sea that they swallowed.
Parents watch their children warily, one eye on the heaving water at all times, even while having a conversation with another parent, who also has their ever-watchful gaze pinned to a child darting in and out of the waves.
Enormous umbrellas provide artificial shade and a handful huddle beneath the shadow, paperback books out as they ignore the sun-bright world beyond the little sanctuary of darkness.
The sky is a bright, cheerful blue and the sun is the color of a lemon, sending down blinding rays of hot, bright light on those worshipers who lie on towels and allow the sun’s rays to darken their skin to a heated golden-brown.
The wind sallies through the scene, picking up unsecured towels and carrying it off as a young man chases after it, cursing freely. Those who lie in the path of the wind and its stolen towel are sprayed with sand as the young man kicks up waves of hot, golden rocks and the yells of surprise and outrage double until the towel is captured and returned to its place.
The smell of sunscreen and hot dogs mingle in the clear summer air, creating a perfume that would always, inexplicably be, the smell of summer if only one could bottle it up and sell it.
Hot, pink faces rush by to get a new layer of sunscreen lathered on by careful mothers and fathers who make their children sit under an umbrella for the lotion to dry, trying to get something healthy into impatient child and children grudgingly accept the offered fruit or drink of water, if only to please the over-worried parent so that they can get back to their fun.
The ocean reaches out to the beach goers eagerly, long fingers of water falling short of bare feet and dry towels. After reaching as far as it can, the water curls back in on itself invitingly, tempting children and adults alike with its soft, salty call.
Seagulls cry and squabble over the shred of food that was carelessly discarded by human hands, spreading white wings in a blatant challenge to another bird that hisses and screeches back; the birds circle and then each dive for the scrap of bread, flapping thin wings to get purchase on the slippery sand.

~*~

See what I mean? Winter was better.