Every year, I think grandiosely that I have had the last word on summer: Summer is meant to be a foretaste of eternity, limitless, unscheduled, gently lapped by waves of leisure and enjoyment. Then, I’ll be out somewhere and hear the saddest descriptions of overscheduled summers. A child might be allowed precisely seven minutes to play in the library after an educational program before being whisked to coding camp, all while enduring punishing schedule of activity-based birthday parties, his mother quietly fretting about the state of his macros with all this pizza and party food. It’s almost as though these people haven’t read this obscure blog.
Now, I should clarify why the descriptions are sad. It’s not for any lack or deprivation. What makes the descriptions sad is just how much effort and expense goes into planning and plotting these summers of excess. Camps, classes, parties: All fine and happy things that merit inclusion in many summers. However, they are rattled off and shuttled between in such stifling quick succession that I can’t help but feel a pang for the summers those children—and their mothers—might have had.
Let summer be a time of inhale and exhale, mornings luxuriating at a lake, sun-kissed afternoons with damp hair spent with good books and stories. Unscheduled is not the same as unstructured. A lack of civilizing scaffolding and worthy pursuits will lead many to destruction and despair. No, it’s about setting the stage and allowing life to proceed in an unhurried way.
Ordinary life will, of course, continue apace. A tedium of dishes and laundry, floors that leave crumbs sticking to your bare feet, bills to be dealt with and all the rest of the weary world march into our physical and mental landscape any time of year. But between these necessities we can receive moments of illumination, but only if we are still long enough to notice. Summer is as good a time as any to cultivate an awareness of eternity.
For summer reading to inspire your leisurely days or occupy your hot afternoons, here are a few from the archive:
A Short List of Summer Reads for Young and Old
5 Perfect Picture Books for a Summer Afternoon
Edward Eager’s “Half Magic” and the Full Magic of Summering Well
“The Trolley Car Family” for a Fun Summer Read
Tim Gautreaux’s “Welding with Children” and Reading about the South this Summer
