This week started wet and cold and then got hot, hot–so much so that it immediately became hard to go to the bank or the library or even to drive through town as we do on the way home from school without the girls saying that we just must get ice cream, because mommy it is just SO HOT! And summer is here, and can I think of anything more perfect than sitting on the bench there in the shade in front of the ice cream parlor with a cone right now. And even through there are a full two weeks before school gets out and the calendar tells us that summer truly really is, we may as well having summer right now.
It was hot. So the other day, we sat with our cones, and since we were starting the summer anyway, we talked about plans and hopes and what we wanted do. There’s some camp here and there, and nearly a full week in the beginning in our tent amongst the RV’s at our beloved Horseneck Beach. I mostly want to have a full draft of my new book by the middle of August (optimistic, but Summer is the season of optimism), to drink lots of this beer on my back porch, and to keep the tomato plants safe from the army of deer in the field and the family of groundhogs still living under said porch. That’s mostly it.
Every summer, we go through this planning and list-making that fill up the hopeful balloon of summer. When we sit down and talk about the months ahead, it becomes clear that each of us has dreamed of smells and feelings and tastes over the more frozen seasons. The list fills up with action items like
1. Finally learn how to swim to the dock
2. Eat fried dough
3. Go to a lighthouse
4. Cook a lobster
5. Drive at nighttime with the windows down and music playing loud
Word by word, these lists tend to create a vacation that, instead of being weeks of escape from our life, just gets interspersed in our days throughout the whole season. The lists also serve to distract us from the other sides of summer–long expanses of days where I have so much work to do and there’s no camp or playdates and it’s a hundred degrees outside and hotter inside and there are tick bites and sunburns and allergies to plants we forgot about and maybe if we’re lucky, poison ivy or oak or wild parsnip. All that is summer, too.
We didn’t get too far into our list the other day. But we did talk about ice cream, and how much we love to go to the ice cream parlor and sit on their benches with all the people who are on vacation and see our town with vacationer’s eyes. We love it so much that it’s hard not to overdo it. And although I’m pretty much okay with eating ice cream every day, paying for a near-daily cone for each one of us, even when I insist on the kiddie size, is simply not a financially sustainable habit. And that is how the idea of the ice cream token was born. One token=one family ice cream trip, and there are ten tokens for us to spread over the summer as we choose. The decision will rest mostly in the girls hands. But because we’ve said yes already, the only choice is how to use them. And that helps me with another item on my summer list: more yes, less no.
For today’s first of the month (or, second of the month), this is the start. How do you come to your summer? Do you have hopes and goals for these next few months? Is the season different than the three others? Start there, but anything is fair game. I know some of you out there in the Southern hemisphere are actually preparing for winter, too. No need to feel left out! Tell us stories, or tell us what makes the summer what it is for you.
Summer, summer, summer. Go!
Occasionally I teach workshops, and I have one coming up this fall. Join me and stellar novelist 
I’m surprised at how I’ve enjoyed these hot days this week (but we do have some air conditioning, although I’ve been only putting it on at dinnertime). After last Saturday’s 45 degrees, this has been so wonderful – summer really is coming!
Your list idea is a good one – I think I’ll try it, even for myself. Your number 5 made me think of what my “number 5” would be, and always is: Sit outside on the front step at night with bare feet and wet hair. And I’m definitely looking forward to watching the fireflies dart and sparkle outside my bedroom window soon.
Do you not have an ice cream maker, so you don’t have to be buying it every day? Although I’m not sure how much cheaper that would be.
I do have an ice cream maker, and we use it a lot! But there’s something in the actual being there in the hustle and bustle of town, with the cones and the 20 choices–that I haven’t found a way to quite replicate at home.
Oh, I’ve got a big long list of things to do this summer! Reading, canning jam & salsa & pickles, stripping wallpaper & painting in the basement of our new house (so we can cuddle by the fireplace down there next winter), eating a LOT of barbecue, learning to make baked beans, playing hostess to lots of visitors (my favorite!), going for sunrise walks on the wooded trail by our house, practicing my sewing, using my new “Wildflowers & Grasses of Kansas” field guide to sketch & identify the non-weed-y things around the yard, digging out the weed-y things and trying to decide what should take their place, and maybe taking a road trip to St. Louis.
I love your summer list! I wish there were beaches around here, although there is a lake with a little marina where we sometimes go just to look at the boats (and daydream about someday having one).
Summer…I love the idea of sitting on the back porch and knitting until the sun sets. Most of the time I am thinking about all the work I have to do and forget all about knitting into the sunset. This summer at least once, I want to to do just this.
Ah summer … where we are it’s a more subtle shift, but longer daylight hours and fewer specific demands on our time mean beach outings, day trips up and down the coast, weekends away, and lots of family visits. Plus, for this beginning of summer at least, lots of unpacking!! Yosemite and the tent cabins, dinners outside, juice-drippy stone fruit on our porch benches, books and naps on blankets in the shade, and into-the-evening family playdates in various backyards make up the bulk of summer for us – this year, I’ll take your idea and make a list of all the little vacation-moments we can make along the way. Happy summer Alana – oh, and just you watch how fast I make ice cream tokens happen at my house! 🙂
I have to say, summer is my least favorite of the seasons. The heat here in NC turns it into something that must be endured, rather than a time to be enjoyed. So I spend a lot of time in summer planning for September and October when one can be comfortable again. I do intend to go cherry picking this month, and definitely make ice cream-although I make sherbet more frequently than anything else. I’m going to try pineapple sherbet soon as a treat for my father on Father’s Day.
I do love spending time at the farmer’s market every weekend, and I definitely want to enjoy lots of watermelon. Agua fresca made with watermelon, lime, and mint is going to be refreshing when it is over 90 for the 20th day in a row.
I’m definitely going to have to do #5 on your list some, I used to do this all of the time but stopped when gas prices got so high. I’ll have to plan a special trip so I can enjoy this summer pleasure.
The list is long, but I am undaunted: try planting sweet potatoes in the garden, and growing watermelons; harvest our first season of honey from our bees; and growing enough hops to make beer this fall; go paddling every weekend…oh, and make fennel salami…and do it all in such a way as not to miss out on savoring every moment of each delicious day. That will be the most difficult.
I always love this season so much. I am far from free of too many demands on my time (full time student and employee!) but I want to do some of the following:
– Spend a week at the beach in long island. I refuse to leave each day before it gets dark or I can’t hold it anymore (whichever comes first!)
– Enjoying our new deck and bbqing lots!
– Nightly walks around the neighborhood with the hubby
– Lots and lots of gardening before my pregnant belly gets too big for me to do anything, much less bend over =)
Here’s to an awesome summer =)
I love the idea of the list. And the ice cream tokens for someday when we have kids clamoring for ice cream (although the tokens wouldn’t be a bad idea for my husband and I who probably indulge too often). We have a baby due to arrive any day now but I might make a short list anyway because there are always things I want to do that get missed and I think we could squeeze a couple in before the summer ends.
Oh yes- those tokens are just as much for us 🙂
Ohhh it’s finally warm again here in Oregon after a month of rain and it’s so lovely. We never know how long it’ll last but it does get us in summer mode! Our summer is going be gardens (2x the garden of last year!) and waiting for tomatoes to ripen. Also planning for a getaway (me, mom, my brother) to a cabin in the woods when if gets really hot.
Berry picking/farmers market buys…coffee outside on my balcony (this year I will find a chair for that!)…painting projects its been too cold to do…Oh I love summertime!
I come to this summer with hopes of peacefulness. A hope to just enjoy the moments of the day, no matter what the weather, or the situation. I will blow up my “grown up” swimming pool and sit in it in my grandma swim suit and enjoy the late afternoon sun on my face while I soothe away the work day. I will take advantage of quiet Saturdays and harvest fresh vegetables and fruit from my garden and/or the local farmers market but at a relaxing pace – making sure to appreciate the process more. I look forward to spending time teaching my granddaughters how to cast their first fishing poles and dig in the dirt with my grandson. I vow to enjoy as many relaxed moments as I can before this season ends – so when the frigid Montana snow returns, I can have many warm memories to get me through the winter months.
I love the token idea, I wonder how your girls will deal with it–from what I remember, they’re pretty young to have a good grasp on the concept of now OR later and scarcity. Please update us on how this works!