Best.Summer.Ever.

This past summer was literally the best summer of my life. I had many amazing experiences, but what made it amazing was that this was the first time I had a genuinely fun summer.

The beautiful sunset that I enjoyed all summer long.

Before this, I never had fun summers. As a kid, I spent summers at day care (not day camp) where we did 1 major outing to a local water park. My mom didn’t have money to send me to space camp or do a cross country road trip, so instead I sat at home bored playing video games most of the time. Don’t get me wrong–I loved video games but I didn’t have that many and you can only play Sonic 2 so many times…As a result, summer just became a time of boredom, 110-degree heat (I’m from the desert), and a brief but unfulfilling respite from school.

Nothing much changed as I got older. In college, I took classes and worked all summer. When I started working full-time, summer just meant a shift in work activities, and again warmer weather. Not 110-degrees though, as I had moved to the more temperate Los Angeles by then.

With this background, I approached my first summer in New York with the goal to not only explore the city (which I did), but to find a piece of the summer experience that I had missed all my life. And boy did I find it! New York in the summer is truly an awesome place to be and I had an incredible three-month journey. Here’s a sampling of my activities:

Artists I saw in concert for FREE:

Black Thought & ?uestlove
Groove Theory
Ghostface Killah
Raekwon
Afrocubism
Saoud Massi
Rah Digga
Fishbone (my fmr roommate is in the band!)

I visited the Metropolitan Museum and saw the Ancient Kemet (Egypt) exhibit, Central Park (where I saw half the free concerts), Prospect Park, and the Brooklyn Museum among other places. I also had an awesome internship with the Legal Aid Society doing Employment Law in Manhattan, which was a great and rewarding experience (more on that in another post).

The famous Temple of Dendor at the Met Museum from ancient Kemet (Egypt).

I spent virtually every weekend doing fun activities that I had never experienced. I allowed myself to do something I rarely did before…do fun things…because they were fun to do. I know this sounds weird but before this summer, every non-work activity i did usually had some political underpinning. My weekend entertainment was going to community meetings or lectures by local leaders. Although I really enjoyed doing that and learned a great deal, it’s not the same thing as going to a summer concert series with good friends.

Throwing bones with my BLSA folks at a park in Brooklyn. I was winning 😉

That’s another thing I did this summer that was unexpected: build friendships. Before I moved to New York, I had a very small handful of friends (really just 2) that I talked to or hung out with on a regular basis. And when we did talk, it was mostly about politics. Again, I loved that and my friends are like brothers to me. But I built new friendships (chiefly with my new big brother/classmate) that extended beyond shared political perspectives. I really enjoyed just hanging out, going to brunch or concerts and spending time with cool people. I learned that I could have more than just a handful of friends and how much I enjoyed connecting with new people.

Me, my boy Dwayne and his girlfriend Valencia @ 1st Saturdays at Brooklyn Museum.

The other thing I loved about this summer was boxing. I looove boxing! My friend/former TA started teaching me boxing over the summer and it was awesome! We met up every few days and I learned all the basic moves. I discovered that boxing is a sport of intense strategy and to me is like chess…just with gloves on ;-). I think boxing is going to be my new hobby and I want to continue pursuing it.

Besides boxing, I also hit the links this summer. Look at that form! #TigerJr

Overall this summer, I learned a lot about myself and the things that I enjoy (outdoor concerts, good friends, boxing!) and had many memorable experiences. I can’t wait until next summer to do it again!