At the end of our hopefully hottest and sunniest season, everyone asks, “Did you have a good summer?”
In elementary school you start your first week off writing stories and painting pictures about what you did during your summer vacation.
Everyone expects that having a good summer, implies that you did something, and it can’t be just anything. It needs to be something worth sharing, something impressive, something adventurous.
Summer is the season of activity. You are to be actively engaged, to accomplish. Give a party, put in a pool, camp, hike, bike, run a marathon, travel across the continent, visit distant relatives on the other side of an ocean.
This summer
I decided to focus on pleasure – to savouring the moment.
I found myself meeting like minds and delving into conversations of substance, where time slipped by and you came away with plenty of new thoughts to think about.
Sitting on a porch with a friend from years ago, wrapped in the night air, the twinkle lights of an eight foot eiffel tower (she has a love affair with Paris) taking the place of fire flies, whiling away the hours in laughter. Oh yes, there was wine. We’d have laughed without it, we probably just laughed a little more.
Soaking in the music of a festival from another culture shaded by towering trees, relaxed in the lushness of a park.
Early morning coffee on a patio, the sunrise peeking over the rooftops, listening to the birds waking up the day.
The giggles and squeals of my grandchildren as they ran through sprays of water at the local splash pad.
The startle from the first rumble of a thunder storm, to the excited anticipation of lightening cracking through the night sky.
Setting up a lawn chair in a front yard, lost in the chords of a classical guitar at an annual porch party, tucked away on a neighbourhood street.
Walks through city gardens where a kaleidoscope of colour heightened as the days passed by.
Italians have an expression, ”dolce far niente”, the sweetness of doing nothing.”
The “somethings” of my summer weren’t nothing, but I did find a great sweetness in the pleasure of what I chose to give time to experience.
Slowing it all down, to take it all in
Fall is now upon us. I like this past time called pleasure. I’m getting the hang of basking in the moment rather than the tallying up of a list of activities.
I can already smell the change in the air, the wind taking on a subtle crispness and the anticipation of the crunch of leaves underneath my feet.
Oh, the pleasure of it all.
Photos by: Sharon Cooke