"Rest during the hot hours..." ~ Jane Eyre

My favorite lines about the heat of summer come from Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird: Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum powder.

As I sit here, eating cooling off on coffee ice cream on the first full day of summer, I am thinking about moments in the summer that are the most pleasurable aspects of the season. There are so many, whether it is sipping iced tea from the bagel store in a huge white styrofoam cup, burrowing under layers of blankets while the air conditioner blasts all night, sitting in Yankee stadium on a midsummer's eve sipping beer, or watching fireflies in the backyard after a walk around the neighborhood.

My favorite moment of summer that is most pleasurable is taking a shower after a day at the beach.

I love the moment of entering my apartment after a day at Nickerson Beach.

My hair is usually in a tight bun, still doused with tons of conditioner left in from the early part of the day. I slip my flip-flops off; there is still a sprinkling of sand on top of my feet despite trying to rub most of it off back in the beach parking lot with talcum powder. The gleam of my colored toenails is usually lost in the abrasive wet sand; a small price to pay for such a beautiful beach day. I place my beachbag down by the door, careful not to bring any sand into the apartment. I immediately head to the shower, carefully placing my swimsuit on the towel rack to be washed out later of all the sunblock that it absorbed. I turn the water on and wait for the temperature to become warm.

The initial moment of stepping in the shower is my favorite. The taste salt on my upper lip for the last time as well as smell the coco butter from the sunblock; both reach a crescendo. Within a few moments, both dissipate and are gone. The salt which flattened my hair drips down the drain, along with the sand that was stuck in the thick pockets of it. My curls then revive, and the thick scent of a lavender body wash becomes overpowering. The last of the sand from Nickerson is scrubbed off of the tops of my toes, and I begin to notice how dark my olive skin has turned despite wearing spf 30.

I like to stay in my bathrobe for a long time after I exit the shower on beach days. I turn on the air conditioner, lie on my couch, drink a beer, and inhale aloe moisturizer. Sometimes I nap, other times I grab the book I was reading at the beach that still has sand stuck in its pages.

There is an outdoor shower at J.Sarah's family house in Sag Harbor which I am always too chicken to use when I stay out there. I love the main bathroom in the house; its completely white. Showering after beach days in Sag are favorite moments, too, because sometimes we dressed up afterwards to go out to dinner at places like Almondito or the Palm, showing off our beach glows and drinking cold cocktails.

I know showering sounds like an odd choice for a favorite moment of summer, but I am sure there are other favorite moments that others have that are unique and pleasurable that I would enjoy hearing about...