Summer

There are people sitting on folding chairs in a half-circle around an old stone fireplace that is the last remnants of a house that stood here during the Civil War. The fire gently paints the stone with its orange light, as the fireflies do drunken dances through the cool, humid air. I sip on whiskey-laced coffee as friends throw cupfuls gasoline into the fire, enraging it but for moments before the night swallows it again. These summer nights are tearing by.

The other night I was at Giants Stadium for the Springsteen concert, another defining moment of my life to be sure. He sang with flair and fury, with the urgent beauty that only passionate men can create. When he ended, he sang to us the three songs that he knows are for New Jersey, and Jersey alone.

As the crowd howled the lyrics to "Jersey Girl" under the view of the peaks of the massive cranes that are building the next Giants Stadium and young couples made out by the cavernous lights that steal the darkness from us, all I could think of was that I wish she was here, and that oh, amigos, life is beautiful... fleetingly so, but beautiful nonetheless...