It was always the same.

On the last of summer vacation, leaving grandparent’s house, walking down the dimly lit stairs, with mom walking behind me (she always walked behind me, never in front), she would say the same thing. The literal translation is “Summer is over, its time to collect your heart.” It implies that my heart has grown wild in the hundred days of summer and its time to tame it; school is starting.

Thirty years later, her words still echo in my mind at the end of every summer, whenever my time on the road is about to end. She is ignorant to the power of her words, even when I am actively tune her out. Don’t tell her. Or tell her, but tell her to choose different words —- because mom’s words sinks in no matter how hard we pretend otherwise.

What if I don’t want to collect my heart? What if the heart is meant to be wild —- galloping across rolling hills in the rain? What if summer only ends because all the children have collected their hearts and stuffed them into their pencil boxes. If our hearts ran wild through all the days, never tamed, summer will last forever even if there is snow on the ground. What if …?

End of Summer 2014 —- with an untamed and uncollected heart.