Summer… Just that word. Take a moment and listen to that word. Summer. How did you feel? What are you thinking or remembering? What sensation had spread in your body as you rolled this word off your tongue?
Summer has meaning for everyone, but that meaning may be very different for each of us… is summer about liberation? A sad ending? A hopeful beginning? Ecstatic fun? Dread of loss? Sun, swing sets, and sundaes? Bees, broken bikes, and sun burns? Sleeping in? Working? Morning TV shows and trips to the pool? Late nights? Being left alone? Connecting with friends? Anxiety? Gratitude? The list goes on and on. In honor of the longest day of the year (June 22nd, that is), maybe we could take a long pause and think of what summer means to each of us. Just for the hell of it. To remember what was lovely and exciting about it for each of us, or what was awful or frightening about it; to remember how things smelled around us, and what people were wearing, what was our favorite snack of those days and who did we stop talking to that summer.
For me, that’s what summer symbolizes: giving ourselves permission to free associate, not for an agenda or an end goal, but just because. I remember a particularly hot day, it was probably 100 degrees, the summer vacation between fourth and fifth grade. My best girlfriend Haddy and I took turns climbing a magnificent tree in our neighborhood. We wanted to see who could climb to the top. We were laughing and scratching ourselves and itching like crazy because of all the bugs, and we had chores to do at home (I remember my mother making a list – dishes, dust the desks around the house, fold clean clothes). 25 years later, I don’t remember who won, who climbed the most distance, but that delicious memory comes up when it’s particularly hot outside, like it is right now. It makes me feel a little heartbroken because Haddy and I haven’t spoken in over a decade, and it makes me feel liberated that I now get to write down my own chores, and it makes me a little indignant that summers no longer have that beginning and end in such a concrete way as they used to.
These summer days could be our time to give ourselves the space that our usual routine won’t let us do so easily – to take a pause and enjoy a moment of nostalgia just because we can; to share with ourselves, with friends, or with our therapist what summer means to us. Who knows what stories we hold about this special time of year?
Share your summer memory with us below!