Summer Storms
Letter #2: The one where I talk about summer storms and how August gives us permission to be over it already. Where are my black pants?
Dear Friend,
We had one of those great summer storms in the night. The kind of storm that reminds you of what feeling cozy feels like. We forget all about coziness in summer, preferring to feel cool and free. To feel unencumbered. But then a wild, wet storm blows through in the night. You tuck yourself in a little tighter and remember sweaters. Where are they? You long for long pants. You want to revert to black.
Summer storms helps us prepare for – and even get excited by – cool evenings of autumn and winter.
Plus, by August we are over it. June almost ruins summer with its extroverted fever to GET OUT and ENJOY SUMMER. We feel pangs of guilt for not filling each day to the brim with inflatable animals, frozen water products, and PLANS. So many plans. By August, we pull up a chair on the porch and finally read the summer books we would have read at the beach if there wasn’t so much TO DO at the beach.
August is also when nature fulfills promises it made in February. The tomatoes and cucumbers are a triumph. I’ve gone on about it. I know I have. But… It’s worth emphasizing. My mom continues to pillage my patch now that there is more than enough to go around. In the evenings, we have been out picking this and that, then making a sort of salad out of it. Sometimes there is no lettuce. It depends on what is ready. They are a rainbow of whatever is ripe and ready. There is a great deal of cutting and chopping.
So we have been feasting. Feasting our eyes on tomatoes drooping red from the vines. Feasting on the vibrant salads. Feasting on the slow calm brought on by the end of summer activity. Or rather, partaking in the end-of-summer activity of not doing too much. A flower bouquet arranged here, a tomato sliced there.
It makes one wish there were more Augusts in the year. A slow down. Puttering and preparing. And wondering what is on the horizon.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not yearning for my black wardrobe again.
-Janice
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