When do you feel the sticky sweet weight of summer’s arrival? Is it 1 June (meteorological calendar) or the 21 June solstice (astrological)? Perhaps last month on the day you dug out your sandals? Or sat in your garden with a rose? The first popsicle of the year? When it was warm enough to sleep with the windows open? Breathed in the scent of sunscreen on warm skin? Noticed the yellow of daisy eyes, open wide?
Summer lives in all these moments. Summertime lives in you. It’s in your connective tissues and when the light honeys your space and things take on a molasses-like texture in the specific way that’s native to these weeks you are invited to remember — There’s time.
Stretch out. Exhale. Release.
For me summer doesn’t feel official until the last day of school when the rhythm in my household makes a distinct turn. Still days (for some of us, weeks) from that particular moment, I find myself welcoming the season alongside an unwelcome rush to get things done before children are underfoot, gears shift, and journeys are made. I know I’m not alone. A frenzied pressure cooker countdown as if, per usual, we must tidy our to-do list and gain some unsaid permission to breathe out. As if.
And yet. The sun stands still on the longest day of the year, reminding us: There’s time.
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