Reflecting on Summer

I got woken up early this morning by loud chainsaws in the neighbors’ yard. Trimming and cleaning away trees and bushes that have grown too much, gotten out of control.

In our backyard, a wisteria plant winds around the screened porch. It’s out of control, but provides such shade and is oh so beautiful to me.

Since it seems time to reflect, and since an email from Emily P. Freeman told me to reflect, here are a few thoughts on this summer, or things I’ve realized:

• It’s ok to have a summer that’s thick and still, where nothing really happens. It’s ok not really answer that question, “What are your summer plans?” It’s ok to rest and work really hard and be there. 

• I’ve realized I like driving. Distances. Not too long but a good amount of time. I like the wide open spaces. I like being in control; I like spending time with my daughter or my mom, taking them places they’d like to go. That these places don’t belong to anyone. Douglas Coupland called driving “enforced meditation” and in a sense it is. You can’t do much else but focus on what’s in front of you, around you. And its’ nice. 

• It’s ok to hope. A door cracks open ever so slightly, and light comes in. It’s ok to relearn things, to remember, to learn a new way, to go back. 

• Friends may move away, but that doesn’t mean they’re not still there. And it doesn’t mean that there’s not still hope for this town. That this town is not full of possibility, creativity, and light. 

• Many of the podcasts I listen to were on hiatus, but two kept going and sustained me: What Now? with Trevor Noah and Raising Boys & Girls with Sissy Goff and David Thomas. Different podcasts but both deeply rooted in truth and love.

• I read a few books that I loved: Our Strangers by Lydia Davis, The Lights by Ben Lerner, With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang, and The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay (I read an entry about his birthday on his birthday, July 31, happy day). I also read 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand, which gives spot-on descriptions of Nantucket island and PJ’s Pub in Baltimore.

• I took walks in the evening, picked up dog poop, watched the summer haze seep through the oaks, and walked with a good friend and her new dog. 

• I listened to the kids play Fortnite and Roblox with their friends, laughter and chatter and occasional screams.

• I watched the Paris Olympics and marveled at the beauty of Paris and the strength of the Olympians. 

In this somewhat calm before the storm of back-to-school and busyness, I pray to stay calm, to enjoy, not get caught up in the tide of emails and to-dos. To embrace the out-of-control and call it abundance. To listen to the cicadas sing and thump against the window at night. To embrace the nothing of this time, to focus on what stretches in front of me, right now.

Photo by Joel Holland on Unsplash