on summer

I like summer more than most do, or perhaps even should.

Like many, I do love a good scarf + huge sweater, a long evening in the kitchen stirring a bubbling risotto, a perfect white-out day stuck inside while flakes fall outside, a gingersnap big enough to match the feelings of the season… I love these things.

But summer awakens me.

Vibrant.

I think it may have always been this way.

Cold makes me angry. Cold feels like an enemy, a predator, even; it makes me restless and longing. My bones rattle no matter the layers. I am stiff beneath the bundles, a constant state of straight-limbed and whining Randy. I seem never to thaw, always left wanting.

Place me in a wide-open field with the sun beating down, however, and this skeleton will come to life. Warmth is magic. A voice speaking comfort, adventure, and hope. I don’t think I can ever fully express the nearly tangible bursting that happens within me during this season.

It is walking out the door unhindered, no need for an extra item of clothing. It is both the memory and existence of childhood freedom: of spending the entire day outdoors, sun-beaten and freckled and dirty and smiling, only to return an hour later, nourished and clean, to chase lightning bugs and be swept up in dusk’s splendor. It is long days and eternal sunsets. It is laughter. It is yesteryear’s memory of picking honeysuckle flowers and sucking the nectar out, of running unhinged across a field, of being completely unaware and un-needing of the time of day; and today’s reality of a post-dinner park walk under the burning sunset with nothing more than a jar of Argentinian white, a good pair of jeans, and the day’s wanderings in your thoughts. It’s the reflecting light; the swaying tall grasses; the tiny little life beneath your feet that rejoices at yet another season to exist. It’s the overwhelmingly countless shades of green that somehow every year shock me to my core, a delight for the eyes. These layers of billowing foliage that begin at the river’s edge, shrouded in mist and heat, transport me ten years backwards into a cushioned seat inside Columbia, SC’s greatest hidden treasure, the McMaster building, as wall-sized slide after slide submerges me into fantastical Rococo garden scenes. It is fighting the brambles to reach that single blackberry that stares back at you.

It is constructing a complete meal from only freshly grown vegetables. A candy-sweet tomato eaten like an apple. Snappy cucumbers and bursting berries, juicy lettuces and shining cherries. A playground for the senses.

I wait all year for this.

I love a good sweat; this season of heat feels like constant cleansing. I love the sun against my skin, the comfort of simple clothing, the grit of grass or sand or dirt meeting my feet.

Recharged.

It’s a glistening glass of white wine in the evening breeze, the clematis beside me growing so rapidly that I can practically witness its movements. Summer holds this dynamic tug-of-war between perfect stillness and devouring every bit of life within reach. There are moments when the very best way to honor its beauty is just to sit quietly in it. And yet others when the call is too loud, to go chase its booming symphony. 

This summer, this heat, this reality year after year, century after century, brings life to dormancy. How beautiful that we can rely on this consistency, this promise. It is one of my favorites of any such things.

And I think, rather I know, that the reason for my affinity to this dear friend is not only because of all these beauties, but because it is the anticipation of, the hope for, the reality of free living. Its very presence equates to a whispered encouragement. Everything and everyone within its realm is urged to experience, to indulge, to rest, to enjoy, to throw cares aside and simply live. And from where I sit, we can never have too much of that.

This season— it is, quite literally, life.