What I Did This Summer by Davey Fitz

This summer I stayed a district away from home at my favourite uncle's house. Actually, to be honest, I'm not really sure he's related to me. I think my mom just calls him uncle because he helps out by watching me when she has to go away. I'm not even sure she's ever really met him. He said I should start out this paper by writing that I really hope I get a good grade on it. I told him I didn't think we were allowed to do that. But he insisted, so I put it in here. It's not the first sentence, like he wanted, but I think he'd be happy it's in the first paragraph. He also said I shouldn't write that I think this sort of essay is too childish an exercise for a teenager to still have to do before the beginning of the school year, but I'm putting that in here too, so you'll know what I'm writing is honest and true.

I learnt a lot of things living at my uncle's over the past three months. For instance, when I first got there and wanted to watch some television he said to me: "Look around you, Davey. Look at your world. Are you surrounded by things you love? Why not?" I didn't understand what he meant. Except, I thought maybe he meant the world is a beautiful place and I needed to live in it, not just watch moving pictures of it, to really experience its true wonder. He would never explain himself. I think it's because he figured me out a long time before I really understood myself. Or maybe he just guessed correctly, based on what he knew of my relationship with my mom. He knows I need my world to have some sense of certainty. But he insists I'll be better off if my world is a puzzle. A riddle. Something to work on, inside my head, when he isn't around, which is almost all the time. I'm not really sure why my mom thinks it's a good idea to have him look after me when she's away, but I don't have much say in the matter and it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want when I'm living with him. Except watch television, because he doesn't own a TV set. Or any lights. He doesn't own a lot of things most people do. My bed is usually a mattress on the floor in an otherwise empty room.

I think the most important lesson I learnt this summer with my uncle, I learnt on my own. While I was feeling truly alone. While he probably assumed I was sitting around my room trying to figure out whatever confusing response to a simple request he'd left me to ponder. I had a few friends in his borough and, even though my uncle and my mom probably wouldn't approve of me spending time with them, it's not like either of them were around to complain. As long as I made it back home by night, no questions were asked. If anyone was there to ask them.

My friends and I spent most of the summer doing nothing of real consequence. That's what summer's for, I think. I got to watch television with them, so that made me happy. But it also made me sad, I guess, because they liked to watch the news and that made me think of what my uncle had said in response to my initial plea to waste some time sitting in front of a TV set. The stuff the news reported on every night wasn't good. And it wasn't fun, like most of the times I spent doing stuff around town with, or without, my friends. It was all depressing. And it made me not want to watch any more. Mostly, it made me realise that, when I was watching the television with them, I felt like I wasn't surrounded by anything I loved. My friends were there, sure, but the terrible things the news people showed us were happening all over the world—even in our little part of it—made it seem like maybe my world wasn't really that beautiful a place after all.