the love of summer

Almost a whole season has past during my writing hiatus.  I let the pollen-filled, balmy air of spring transition to the sweltering days of summer.  Sitting down to write again, I realize I have written this before; that summer is my most favorite season.  I love all four seasons for different reasons.  Fall for its crisp air and changing leaves that present the most beautiful portraits of natural beauty.  Winter for its quietness when a cold day forces people to hibernate away in the warmth of their homes, gazing out windows that frame scenes of constant rain or snow.  Spring for the dewey promise of new beginnings, flowers blooming and birds once again singing out the morning window.  But summer to me is different.  Maybe its the warmth that hits the skin and just feels more penetrating.  It's the season where water is cherished and celebrated.  Whether the beach, the river, or the lake, these bodies of water produce relieving cool breezes and an escape from the penetrating sun.  Summer seems to be a time when it's okay to be lazy, when the serious things become not all that serious and the long days seem to fade into each other with each sunset.  

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

Thunderstorms are a constant during a Southern summer.  I've come to appreciate how they ominously form on some of the hottest of days as if the skies open up to provide welcome relief from the heat.  This first summer in our house saw both of our birthdays, our third anniversary and hosted an ongoing string of visitors.  It turned out to be exactly how I would have imagined our house during summertime to be.  River shoes finding their seasonal permanent space on the deck, a barbecue in constant use, the hum of the air conditioner I am grateful for during these months, and the long summertime hours that beckon more fun and less sleep.

I drifted into a summer-nap under the hot shade of July, serenaded by a cicadae lullaby, to drowsy-warm dreams of distant thunder.  ~Terri Guillemets

In some places this summer, I realize it has been uncomfortably, sometimes unreasonably hot.  Summer, like it's counterpart winter, often tests us with extremes.  Somehow, as the long days shrink, shadows getting shorter and the night sky appearing earlier, we forget all about it.  In the shortest days of winter I find myself longing to feel that penetrating heat of summer.  In less than two weeks, August will give way to September and trickle into the beginning of fall.  I know I'll be ready for it, I always am.  Each year I find I am ready for those long days to become just a bit shorter because that means football and Halloween, the nearing of Thanksgiving which means time with my family.  As we trek through the next three seasons I'll keep thinking of what's ahead, of the next time Summer Solstice brings the longest day of the year and a new summer season.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. ~John Steinbeck