The Sacred Nature of a Summer Romance
Updated: 8 minutes ago
Among the part time lovers, the boyfriends, the hookups, I believe there is a special place for summer lovers.
Time is one of the strangest conditions of our world, and once it binds to a solstice, life suddenly is liberated from its wickedness. Seconds measured in grains of sand, in starry nights and beautiful mornings. We melt into this atmosphere, glowing of hope and freedom. The people we come across while we are floating in this wind of change are often the ones who touch our hearts the deepest.
There is a peculiar beauty in the fatality of a summer romance. It is ephemeral, dazzling, sexy, fun, and wonderfully emotional. Lightness is the essence of these months, and yet it is often embodied in some carnal, grotesque expression of desire. Running wild on some foreign beach or strange new city, we crave freedom, beauty, release.
To date, I have had the privilege of sharing this bond with three men in my life. What brings me to reflect upon these moments is observing the person I was at the time, who I transformed into as I dipped a toe into this bubble of summer love. At fifteen, twenty, and twenty-four, summer has seen me grow, finding his lips to kiss as I turn my face to the sun.
The following stories are the delightful amalgamme of time stood still and the blossom of possibility. With each romance, I discover layers of myself from within.
Lake Champlain, 2017
I first discovered the fascinating thing that is a summer romance, when I was fifteen while on holiday in our family home in upstate New York.
My childhood best friend lived about five minutes away by walking on the rocks along the lake. We were friends because we caught snakes and frogs together. His friend from the city was also friends with him because they caught snakes and frogs together.
At this time, I was a teenager bubbling with a hunger to create my own world. I was an avid writer, and lived through my fantasy crushes, daydreaming of boys and this beautiful thing that was a kiss. The poet in me dreamed of something wonderful, unique, under a starry sky, something that would bring me close to the gods.
Walking in the pine forest, we talked of this conundrum with my childhood friend. He habitually displayed his affection for others through a New York edge of sarcasm, but he was very reliable and I trusted his judgment. He argued that there was no real benefit to the poetic ideal of “saving” one’s first kiss for a first true love.
“Honestly, if I could redo my first kiss, I’d want it to be with someone decent, nice, and get it over with so that when the time came with the person I really loved, I would be ready. If you really want to see what a kiss is like, P— is right over there. He’s my friend, I can guarantee you he’s a good guy, you know he’s good looking, and overall chill. It’s just an experience and honestly being here at the lake is the perfect setting.”
This was a revolutionary idea. The fact that you could actively design your ideal setting, select a character, and set into motion a beautiful experience was beyond anything my poetry books could have taught. I relished in the possibilities and the newfound power this idea gave me.
When we returned, I observed his friend like a caged pet I wasn’t yet sure whether to bring home or not. He was tall, Chinese-American, bronze-skinned, slanted eyes, long dark lashes and full lips. He was too smart for his own good, with a dash of shyness that lent him a seductive allure.
The lake was beautiful that night. The smell of pine wood and smoke curled into the sunset, smooth water lapping at the rocks we sat upon. Moss beneath our bare feet, leaves in our hair. There, time lay in the depths of the forest, somewhere far, far away. He was sweet and gentle as we kissed. I was dizzy from the sensation, laughter between our lips.
It was a wonderful first kiss, a divine act that I had initiated, guided by the unexpected angel on my shoulder. As we rolled lazily on rocks and moss and leaves, I dissolved into the milkyway above.
This was the blessing that is a summer romance. Time and thought burned into the night, leaving the delicious impression of sugar melting on my tongue.
Singapore, 2022
Luxury is often a quality of a summer romance. As time slips into the sea, wealth is an element that can capture everything one desires.
Twenty years old and freshly freed from a sad and sordid relationship, I was finally empty. I had been drained of love’s awful pain, I had released my heartbreak into the ocean. Now, my soul was hungry for experience, and I felt that the world would open itself to me.
On my profile I wrote “Leaving in a week, so don’t let me break your heart.”
MJ was the first to bite at the bait.
That summer in the lush tropical heat, life bloomed at my fingertips, as lovely as an orchid.
MJ in Singapore was truly a thing of myths. American sharpness wrapped in tan brown skin, with dark, beautiful Indian eyes that were always looking to free the gods trapped in others. He blazed on ahead and the world followed. He was spontaneous, blunt, witty. Being with him was like seizing life by the throat and kissing it until it purred for you.
MJ was a rockstar and he knew it.
He knocked the wind out of you by the sheer will to live like you were on fire. He had lived all over the world and owned it as naturally as the silver spoon that graced his lips. He pushed discussions to their logical, poetic and philosophical, edge, and would insist you challenge him, shaping your tongue like intellectual foreplay.
The man had everything at his fingertips, and yet I will always remember his words to me while we lounged in his penthouse with a skyline view:
“I like you because you are free in all the ways that I am not. And I know this is probably a quote written on the back of a shitty romance novel in Barnes & Nobles, but it’s true.”
And then, taking my face in his hands, he’d hold me with firm tenderness until I would admit that I was beautiful. I’d fall into those hypnotizing eyes, into the pillows of silk and the gentle smoke from incense freshly lit by the maid. He’d make me read my poetry at sunset along the canal, rewarded with praise murmured on my skin.
I had him "wrapped around my finger" - as he'd eloquently affirm - and with his touch came the limitless magic of desire. The desire to create, the hunger to learn, the need to connect with others. We bounced ideas off one another, our wildest dreams suddenly having found a home in the other’s chest.
I became a poet, and he, an actor. As artists, we’d capture moments of life through a lens, through a phrase, and it was all wrapped up in a feeling that only we could understand. At a touch, entire languages unraveled, limitless fantasies became possible, and suddenly we were soaring above the city skyline, where nothing needed to be real.
Valais, 2026
At twenty four, I have lived many lives and loved many men. Love of varying culture, depth, routine… I started to become bored with relationships, bored of continually loving outwards without knowing anything of myself. Celibacy was gentle to me as I navigated the murky shadows of consciousness at my home in Switzerland. Deep rooted fears that drove habits, ego dressed as confidence, arrogance to mask my shame - all these grotesque things reared their head for me to pet and forgive with grace.
I went so deep within myself to undo all these things that hurt me and those I loved, it became an obsession that erased myself from the external world. I started to lose that hunger for approval, that craving for romantic attraction.
I not only started to lose that desire, but a part of me feared it. Desire is a potent spell, and I was afraid I would lose myself again, should I say yes.
July 31st. 2026. Diary entry. Word for word
My past and future all rushing into one another, colliding in a crash.
Patterns, cycles of shame and hate and guilt and longing for love.
A future unknown, of so many uncertain opportunities.
Trust, Courage, Hope.
The weight of responsibility and the pain of failure. Shame in falling.
What if I said Yes?
There are two things that guided me to say Yes. Butterflies, and the moon.
I had been seeing a lot of butterflies that month of July, more than I ever remembered. They danced in the wind, winking at me through their iridescent wings. Then, he winked at me from across the room.
Gorgeous black hair falling before green eyes, tall so he stoops a little to lend you his ear, a hand on the small of your back. That night, we truly met for the very first time.
For I must confess, the first time we met had been years ago, in a hot blur of white wine. A moment locked away in our chests, burning all this time with guilt, pride, shame, and a familiar curiosity - desire.
Drifting away from the crowd, we finally looked each other in the eye. And so we talked. and chatted. and discussed. and debated. and talked so much that finally, we understood one another, and that mute moment from years ago unraveled. At a touch, it was set free.
The moon was full that night, large, gentle and strong. The mountaintops gleamed silver and black, slopes of grey stretching in the light. He cupped my cheek, a soft hand in my hair, and there we kissed, for the very first time.
Butterflies, under the full moon.
There it all was again. The wonderful lightness of summer. Desire blooming with each kiss, like a spell cast over time. Nothing else mattered in that moment.
All of the heaviness from being withdrawn into myself was finally released into the wind. I relished in the possibility of magic again, of romance and tenderness warming my skin, of melting into his touch with abandon.
Just for now… just a little bit longer…
Time became precious and scarce, so we cherished one another like a delicacy too special to be consumed all at once. We each danced with Life, swayed into opposite corners, twirling breathtakingly close during stolen moments, then to be swept into the wind again.
The virtue of patience bound my hands to my throat, as I learned how to tame the beast that gnawed inside my heart. Desire made to wait is a tiger twitching its tail at the sight of flesh it cannot reach.
Whether I was alone or in his arms, I saw how deeply I had finally come to love myself. So much so that I could feed that animalistic hunger with pieces of my own soul - for I now knew that love was something that I could never lack, something that could never hurt me, something that could flow outwards and always come back to fulfil my own desire.
Thinking back upon these particularly memorable relationships, I see that they all surprised me in ways I never imagined possible before. At fifteen, I realized the possibilities I held in my romantic destiny. At twenty, I devoured the world as it lay before me, rich in opportunity. At twenty-four, I feel like I can finally stand still, observing with clarity the holiness of souls that come together under the blessing of a summer sun.
Seeing them for the first time, feeling the sun blush upon your cheek. Those first instances when your hands touch - how Time holds its breath as your heartbeat mingles with the cicadas’ song. How magical and limitless every moment becomes, in that inexplicable touch of the solstice.
Truly, there may be nothing in the world quite as wonderful as a summer romance.
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