The Art of Summer
IT IS SUMMER when we allow ourselves to slow down and reflect on our personal map with the ‘You Are Here’ designation. There is a slight promise of fall, but it is the open window of time where we can meditate on the here and now. We can see more clearly through our magnifying glass, without the rush of the expectations of the day and the points of interest or disinterest which a family of five must arrive at before the close of the day.
There is a lake in the mountains of North Carolina that we travel to each summer. It is here where reposeful days are punctuated by lesser decisions of meals, water skiing, kayaking, or getting pulled around at high speeds on an inflated tube. The time is simple, the space is comfortable, and the feeling is peaceful. We can relax into ourselves and each other in a slowly vanishing Norman Rockwell existence.
The openness of the lake contained by the Blue Ridge majesty allows me to surrender to motherhood without the usual stresses of the day. I can float on the surface of cool water and fully sense what surrounds me. There is a distillation of gratitude and joy that the stage of water sets, and where dreams of summers past rest atop the lake in early morning mist. It is a time when the challenges of reality become profound more in their absence than their presence.
These are the days whose beauty is what some artists long to uncover in a song, on a canvas, in a dance, or in a poem. It is the warmth of my 14-year-old’s olive brown skin, the freedom of my 7-year-old’s dancing curls in the soft breeze, and the joy of my 11-year-old’s shriek as she plunges into the water from a high jump for the hundredth time.
These sights, feelings, and sounds move us closer together and show us what is essential to a life lived with appreciation for people we love, both near and far, in the brilliant performance of a summer afternoon.
You said “we” and though I was not named I feel as though I was there too living the appreciated life with love.
Having spent several visits with all of you during past summers, the Art of Summer is quite real and pleasant to me. Great memories. Thanks.