Yes, I know…this has been a summer of limited writing, and even my ardent readers (my kids) are complaining that the last blog was over a month ago!
But I know how summer is. Just before it arrives, I am eager and efficient. But then, as kids come home from college and watermelons proliferate, I fall into summer deeply. I welcome it with open arms. The ability to get off script. To savor the unplanned. To beckon an impromptu desire, just to see where it takes me.
I love the elements of summer that make it the season that we all anticipate for a whole host of other reasons. Whereas the fall represents the holidays, presents and parties, the formality of festive tables and elaborate meals, Champagne and dressing up; summer is none of that.
Its very elegance is in its understated nature. It’s eating off melamine dinnerware and dining in swim shorts. It’s afternoon movies, summer concerts, and stretches of idle time, broken by the next great idea, “Let’s go do this…” It is grilling poolside, followed by decadent fresh fruit & ice cream concoctions, and afternoon siestas. It’s vacations…to do nothing.
Summer is leisure, self-indulgence, and freedom while drinking Blanc Lim֜e in unbreakable glasses. And it’s fantastic.
It’s the chaos of visiting friends and family with no agenda, and no objective except to be together…to relax, have fun, and laugh the night away. On my most recent trip to visit my family up in the NY and NJ, we did plenty of that!
As the trip ended, I could not recall how the time had gone by, where the days had dwindled. I just knew that it was the best case of amnesia simply because only a single theme was prevalent. All that I could recall was JOY!
The details did not matter. I simply knew that there had been unforgettable enjoyment, exuberant laughter, and lots of watermelon.
Nine months out of the year, we live a purpose filled life and strive to do our best with it. But the reminder that our true purpose is to have as much fun as we can living life is special indeed. Summer provides the necessary and welcome distraction for us to be able to do that, guiltlessly!
The Italians have an expression, Dolce far Niente, translated as the “sweetness of doing nothing.” If we’ve done a good job at summer, all that “nothingness” will also build up our reserves of creativity & inspiration to carry us throughout the rest of the year. It is necessary for our greatest well-being.
There is only one more month to create those memories of “nothing.” Be sure to take advantage of it!
• Summer reading recommendation: Do Less Be More: Ban Busy and Make Space for What Matters