a few snaps of lilly from last month...some of my favorite summer pictures I've ever taken.

Over the hum of the air conditioner and the silent whir of the fan, the thermometer whispers a very summery 106 degrees. According to the calendar, though, summer is over. This weekend, I kissed the last few days of the season goodbye eating one too many snowcones (my tongue was properly red) and sitting in the pool talking about college one moment and acting like a little kid the next. Today the pools closed and school started and I already have senioritis despite the fact I haven't even made it to the second day of my junior year. The tans will fade and dipping into the water for a cool swim will be a distant memory, but I have folders full of images and a journal full of ink that will always allow me to relive this season. The summer of 2012 will be missed greatly but the memories we made will not be forgotten. Fall, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Please be good to me.

Sand in (between) my toes, wind in my hair, sun in my eyes, and salt on my tongue--beach life is pretty spectacular. Even better than being at the beach, though, is getting to be at it for an entire week with the whole family, including my two older sisters. We were tucked away on Sylt, a little island in the north sea off the coast of Germany, with no internet and only each other's company for entertainment. It was just what I needed, and was worth missing that one train and the sprained ankle and the sore muscles and all that stuff that life throws at you. I slept in the cutest room you ever did see with my older sisters, sandwiched on a cot right between them, and I couldn't think of anything better. It's always such a treat to spend time with them after having to be apart from them for so dang long all the time. There were fierce games of scrabble, late nights spent talking, days where the only plan was to go to the beach, night walks along the shore, and memories made every time you turned around.

And then there was the ocean. I hadn't been to a proper one since 2004--how does this land-locked Oklahoma girl go about describing the ocean? One of my favorite things about it is the unpredictability. I thrive off of the days where the clouds hang low, mingling with the big crashing waves, and the next day, where the horizon is sharper than a knife and the sky as clear as could be. It's exhilarating to walk along the shore in the spray of salt, feeling the wind tangling your hair and not caring, and getting soaked by a wave that strayed out of its proper place. I liked standing where the waves break and feeling the currents suck at my sandy feet, the water always tirelessly surging forward to greet the sand no matter how often it gets pushed back. There's a lonely, yet comforting beauty in the way the waters never cease to rest, no matter who does or doesn't look on.

We got back to my grandparent's house late last night and we sat in the living room eating cold pizza and swapping stories and I don't ever want to leave this place. Why is it that I miss everything but home?

In time, I may share more about our trip, but right now, most of the memories are still too fresh and close to my heart to properly display. For now, here are a few of the hundreds of frames I took...enjoy.

Is it possible to be nostalgic for the present? I didn't think it was, but these past few weeks have proven me wrong. I am nostalgic for these moments that I don't--can't--capture and for the ones that I attempt to capture but never fully succeed. I am nostalgic for the simple way we share bread and butter together, the times we sit in the sun doing nothing but talking about everything, and our ritual of getting ice cream every time we're in town. Stracciatella will always bring back memories.

We went to Bonn to visit my cousins for a day this weekend--Maxi and Anna-Lou are my only cousins and I'm lucky if I see them once every two years, but it's always a sweet time when we're together. We stuffed ourselves on gummy bears from the Haribo outlet and ate the best cinnamon buns on the hammock and visited old ruins atop a steep mountain. On the way home, on the train, we laid all the seats flat in our compartment, like a big bed. I laid on the cushioned seats wanting that train ride to last forever.

And I think the main reason this present-nostalgia creeps in is because I know these are the moments I'm going to miss most when I'm back home. My presence around these parts has been sparse lately, and will probably continue to be, but I got to see my dad for the first time in five weeks today--the longest we've ever been separated--and I have two and a half more weeks left here and I'm ready to make to most of it.

These past few days have been the kind of days that books are written about, songs sung about, and dreams dreamed about. Nothing--words or photographs or anything in between--cannot properly describe fairytale days like these for fear of belittling the sheer perfectness of it all; only the clucking of the hens, the sparks floating up to the night sky, the sun gently prying open my eyelids in the morning, yesterday's makeup and smoke clinging to my clothes, ice cream a few licks away from dripping down my arm, and the feel of wading waist deep through fields of wheat can begin to tell the story. And when the last harmonica strains die away, the big and little dipper melt into dawn, and the ink has faded from our skins, the memories will come back with tomorrow's starry night, the smell of warm sun on wheat, and the lingering smell of campfire and we will swear to never ever forget.

do yourself a favor and watch this video in hd || music by benjamin francis leftwich