Ripples of Summer.

Summer is cruel in Manila. At 2 in the afternoon, it boils at 35 degrees Celsius.  It is only towards 6 in the evening when the City and its environs breath a sigh of relief.

Backyard summer haven

Due to unbearable heat, despite air conditioning, waking up at the ungodly hour of 4 am becomes acceptable.  At 4 in the morning, when the dawn creatures such as roosters are the only ones up and running, the weather hovers around the comfort zone. That's the time I decide to get up and brew myself a cup of coffee.

I picture in my mind the great writer Ernest Hemingway in his grand estate in far away Key West, Florida where he hied off during winter and savoured the summer-like weather of the South while he wrote To Have or Have Not in 1939. He must have been up at dawn, sipping coffee outside in the terrace, facing the light house fronting his estate.

Ernest Hemingway estate in Key West, Florida where he wrote To Have or Have Not

Hemingway, who lived and wrote in countless places such as Cuba, Paris Spain and Africa also lived and wrote in Toronto.

In my youth, our family travelled to the countryside during summer. Our house was wooden, of the two-storey type where windows were opened wide day and night. My grandmother's relatives cooked meals for us, the city kids, while we lazily lounged around or ran off to the forest and fields.

Our own version of the western cottage lake is the river in our backyard where village laundry women washed clothes and where native water buffalo called kalabao  soaked their burdened bodies. Here, we waded through, and sometimes took a quick dip.

Parks are everywhere in Ontario. Above, park in Niagara.

Up in Canada where summers are dry and hot, people trek to summer cottages on weekends. The rich own their cottages, while the average Jane and Joe rent cabins, the yuppie-retirees drive RV's (recreational vehicles) and the rest pitch tents in parks.

In Toronto, my dog Shadow used to accompany me in my weekend morning or weekday afternoon walks all throughout summer, spring, autumn and winter. He'd bark at squirrels most of the time.

While relatively new in Sayreville, New Jersey, I had my sister and her family visiting me one Fourth of July. With no close relatives nearby, we spent the evening in a neighbourhood park where we watched the fireworks lit up the sky. There, we felt part of the big family of Americans celebrating a very important day in American history.

Typical fireworks scene across USA on Fourth of July

As kids vacationing on summers, we usually throw pebbles at streams or rivers and watch the ripples produced.

As adults,  we often look back at major steps we've taken which created the life we know. As the Dalai Lama once said, " Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped in the water, the actions of individuals have far - reaching effects."