BTN News: The sweet remnants of watermelon still cling to your lips, your swimsuit still damp from the midday dip, and your bare feet feel the cool relief of the tiled floor, the only thing that remains cool under the blazing July sun. It’s the kind of summer afternoon that stretches endlessly, where the relentless heat seems to pause time itself. These are the summers of childhood, where siestas are not a choice but a decree from the household elders. The shutters are drawn tight to keep out the unforgiving sun, and the mosquito nets are fastened to keep the pests at bay. In the dim, almost night-like atmosphere of a chalet some 35 kilometers outside Madrid, the only glow comes from a small, outdated TV set.
Here, your small frame nestles into a worn-out sofa, its age concealed beneath an equally old cover. The only light in this room, otherwise shrouded in afternoon stillness, is the flickering screen of a bulky television. It’s through this screen that the voice that will lull you to sleep fills the room—commentary on the Tour de France, which the rest of the country might be awake for, but not you. At 12 years old, cycling races mean little to you. Yet, there’s a ritual here, one you’re pulled into by the matriarch of the house, who sits unflinchingly, absorbed in her summer ritual: daily, televised cycling. The world could end, but she would remain, seeds or ice cream in hand, lost in the spectacle of cyclists battling it out on French roads. Eventually, sleep will claim you, and when you wake, she’ll recount every detail—whether there was a crash, who sprinted, and whether it rained during the stage. The mountains, the views, ah, the views. France is beautiful, but long live Spain, Segovia, and Perico Delgado.
Summer days like these seem endless in childhood. But as you grow older, life changes. The child who once resisted napping in that distant chalet is now an adult. The old house was sold, and you find yourself in a new apartment in Getafe with your parents. Now, your legs spill over the edge of the sofa—you’ve grown taller, though not by much. After a year of early mornings, waking up at 5:50 AM to catch a train to university, your body has grown accustomed to early rising. Even in summer, without the need to wake early, you find yourself up before you’d like. There’s a new routine now, one where you’ve grown to appreciate the necessity of a siesta.
In this new apartment, the air conditioning provides a chill that’s almost too much, so you purposely “forget” to cover yourself, knowing full well that your mother will soon appear with a blanket, worried that you’ll catch cold. She lingers in the kitchen, tidying up with the television as her only companion, while your father settles into his chosen spot on the sofa, coffee in hand, with two sugar cubes—always two.
As you try to drift off on the floral beige couch, you hear the familiar commentary of the Tour de France in the background. The voices are different, the names of the cyclists have changed, but some things remain the same. The Tourmalet and Mont Blanc still challenge riders, doping suspicions persist, and the announcers still laugh over their mispronunciations of French. The plush lion still goes to the stage winner, and your father still quietly praises Induráin, while your mother comments on the rider’s somber expression, noting that he never seems to smile. She’ll hover at the end of the race, taking the remote to change the channel, grumbling about the endlessness of sports on TV. And then, she’ll wake you up, because sleeping too much after lunch isn’t good—something she heard once from a doctor on a talk show.
The summers of a student feel long, especially when the pressures of working life haven’t yet taken hold. But now, as an adult working as a freelancer, summer seems short, fleeting. The Tour de France, once a backdrop to long, lazy afternoons, has become a reminder of chores left to do. Now, it’s you who cleans up the kitchen, and with each passing year, you find yourself resenting the race a little more, a symbol of lost time and responsibilities that never take a break.
The summers of childhood, once so languid and unending, are now tinged with a bittersweet nostalgia. What once was a time of resistance to rest has turned into a longing for those stolen moments of sleep, a yearning for the simplicity of days when the biggest worry was whether you’d miss a favorite show. The Tour de France, once a background hum, is now a stark reminder of the relentless passage of time, of summers that grow shorter as the years go by.
