Barefoot and bare legged, as a young girl in summer’s Midwest, I can only imagine it was the closest thing we had to being shirtless. We didn’t give it a lot of thought then. Our roles were silently firm, and burning pink the outline of a tank top on our core was about as far as we went. But I don’t recall ever feeling trapped. No, it was perhaps as free as I’ve ever been. It all felt like a release. From school. From buses. Alarm clocks and timed lunches. Pony tails let loose in bicycle winds. Striped gym uniforms forgotten in lockers, replaced with mismatched shorts and our cleanest dirty shirts. Even daylight said take your time, wander. And we did. I did. Until we got the call.

It was all around the same time. Varied by a parent’s return from work. A dinner that stoved a little too long. A delayed brother or sister, feeling out their teens. A mother who just needed an extra minute for herself, at the edge of her bed, without heels or pantyhose. But eventually from each porch or front door came the call to come inside. You knew whose house was beckoning by the groans emitted. 

We all knew the sound of our call from home. We didn’t talk about it, but I know I wasn’t alone. I know I wasn’t the only one who was giving thanks behind the groan, that there was a light waiting for me. A cream for my pink shoulders. A table for my day’s story. A pillow to carry me to tomorrow’s. 

We toss around the word freedom, as if we didn’t have it. We’ve always had it. Blessed to run between the comfort of constraint and the flight of feral. Our shirtless souls free to wander, and be welcomed once again.

The days are getting longer. (Another click of gratitude.) What will we do with the time, but dare the sun, and stretch the wander… and giggle beyond the groan.