In Remembrance of Summer by Gina Chung
Above: Standing Girl, Back View by Egon Schiele
Of all the things that I’d like to be doing now, instead of waiting for things to get better, waiting until there are no longer sirens haunting my neighborhood every hour with their banshee wails, waiting until it feels safe to no longer feel so afraid—I’d like to be wearing a light cotton dress on a hot summer day here in Brooklyn, on a rooftop that’s really just a glorified patch of silver-painted asphalt but feels like something holy in the orange glow of a July sun.
A lot of people say that summer is the worst time to be in New York City, but hear me out: summer is when the city is at its most magical and mundane, when the business of surviving one soggy, breathless moment after another is so paramount that it takes precedence over almost everything else. Summer is when I let my electricity bill skyrocket, and my insides turn clear from all the water I’m drinking, and the evening sky is a crescendo of blue-pink-orange, and the whole city feels like everyone’s been allowed to stay up past their bedtimes. Summer is when the boundaries and membranes of things feel porous, and for moments at a time, I feel like anything is possible.
Every year, I forget how much I love summer in New York City, how much the relentless heat and smells of the season can transport me to summer past, to versions of myself that I’m really just an acquaintance to now. In the summer, I can suddenly remember every corner of this city that I’ve ever cried in, every subway stop I’ve journeyed to in search of the next thing that was supposed to change my life, every small humiliation or heartbreak that I thought would kill me but didn’t. And now, standing outside in a soft cotton dress—a dress that’s so old it’s almost see-through in some spots but that I can’t bring myself to retire yet—in New York City in the summertime feels like something that happened to me years ago.
But back to that rooftop. Here’s what I’d like to be doing on it right now, if I could: I’d like to drink a cold beer with my friends and watch the sun become a thin red line on a blue horizon that feels like a hello and a goodbye at the same time. I’d like to feel the breeze cool the sweat on the back of my neck and listen to traffic and other happy people enjoying the summer somewhere far below. I’d like to eat a burned burger. I’d like to tip my head back and listen to my friends laugh while the sky darkens and gets soft with insect wings, until it’s too late and we’re all sunburned, and we hug goodbye and tell each other to get home safely like it’s a prayer before we board separate subway cars and peel off into the night.
It’s started to get warm again. Spring creeps in through my windows, and the trees glow green when it rains. My body feels like it’s sprouting new leaves and tendrils too, as I grow tender and hollow with grief. My phone buzzes with messages from people I love whose touch I won’t know for many more weeks, maybe months.
I am scared to venture outside, not just because of the health risks but because of reports and accounts I’ve heard from people who look like me, people who’ve been attacked and brutalized and blamed for this virus. It is the same sad story again and again. I burn the news into my eyes until I feel sick, glutted with these stories that I know already. And yet I can’t turn away. I can only look out my window and watch the sky change and shift and become something softer, something bluer, and remember what it was like to feel so close to it, once.
Gina Chung is a Korean American writer from New Jersey and the Communications Manager at PEN America. She holds a BA in Literary Studies from Williams College and is an MFA candidate in fiction at The New School. Her work has appeared in Public Seminar and PEN.org and is forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is currently working on a collection of short stories. Find her on Twitter @ginathechung or at gina-chung.com
