Passion

That’s what a ginger haired boy named Jimmy G calls it. A naive boy of eighteen that honestly believes if he wanders around Scotland long enough he’ll stumble upon Hogwarts. He calls it endless summer filled with nights that begin at sundown and last until sunrise. Nights riding bikes through car parks and down quiet streets that have settled in for the evening. Nights spent jumping in cold pools fully clothed and under dimmed bedroom lights. Jimmy G calls it endless summer, when boys are boys and girls are girls and there is no one to tell you it is wrong.

It’s not a tangible thing, it’s not a time of the year, or even a movement. It’s a concept, an idea, a name for those times when you’re happy to be alive and the world is beautiful. There are no packed schedules and excuses about being to work in the morning. There are no pointless liberal arts exams and thesis papers to be written. We’re just those kids that grew up loving everything about everything around us. We’re wide eyed and impulsive, and no one will ever change that about us. We lose sleep because we want to and not because we have to. We stay up with best friends talking about everything and nothing at all. We debate the pointless things and waste time according to our parents. We foolishly go outside in the middle of November without a cardigan and we go running through early August rainstorms. We do stupid things, but we’re happy.

Jimmy G calls it endless summer and it’s walking the cobblestone streets and narrow alleys of explored centuries old cities. It’s standing at the top of the hill when the sun sets and the stars wash over the sky. It’s the smell of the ocean and waking up on your best friend’s floor. It’s a feeling of love and pure elation. It’s the joy that comes from those times you feel most alive.

I’m most passionate about those moments. The times I stay up all night and watch the sun come up, amazed by the way the sky turns colours and the feel of the cool morning air on my skin even though I am inside looking out the closed window. Silent nights in December with all the Christmas lights up sparkling off the snow on the lawns and I keep my curtains open all night to watch them colour the whole neighbourhood. Eight pm on a weekday in that naive boy’s bedroom with some new indie band he found playing on the stereo and the hanging decorative lights turned on just laying on the floor with him. We have no idea what we’re laughing about, but we’re laughing and we like it. It seems ridiculous to his passing mother, who goes downstairs to tell his father Jimmy’s strange behaviour has got to stop. It seems ridiculous, but we find it absolutely absurd to think being in love with being alive is ridiculous.

Jimmy thinks Neverland exists because we believe it does and the limits of possibility are meant to be challenged. He thinks he’s fine being a fool because at least he’s happy being that way. Don’t get us wrong. One day we’ll grow up and have a job. We’ll live paycheck to paycheck and worry about our futures. We’ll get married and have kids we stay up all night wondering where they’ve gone off to now because they are exactly like we were at that age. We’ll stop wandering around Scotland looking for wizards and checking the back of every wardrobe we come across for the entrance to Narnia. We’ll stop being kids, but we’ll never stop going outside without our cardigans and being silly well into our old age. We get so caught up in life, we forget to take a moment and enjoy the feeling of truly being alive in a world where most people merely exist day to day.

It’s called endless summer because Jimmy G thinks people are more passionate about enjoying every single moment of their lives in the summer and that should never stop once autumn comes around.