Sand-covered skin, hiding in the shade of the umbrella, from the burning sun, which only feels good for the first twenty minutes. Somehow, it still finds its way into your heart, leaving an imprint of the warm summer days. It leaves an imprint on the cover of the book you left on your blanket for too long—the colors start to fade.

I learned to appreciate the company of the cloudier August days when it doesn’t hurt to look up into the sky. When the beaches are slowly starting to become less crowded, and all you hear is a distant chatter, the flapping of the wings of food-hunting seagulls, and the crashing waves.

If you're wondering about how I'm spending the last few weeks of this summer, I'm losing myself in another book, the pages of which hold traces of sand, under a dreamy umbrella, on a beach in Brooklyn.