Summer Solstice – Hindsight

If I were running I would have missed these beauties

I set the alarm. A Saturday but I’ve got to run. First feed the cats, grab a water and AirPods and I’m off. There are no Cliffs Notes you can buy to prepare for a 10k; you simply must get in your runs, and this year I’m woefully behind. My cold is mostly over but fatigue is hanging around. I can’t say I will get it done but I’m putting uncharacteristic little pressure on myself. On this morning, I’m slow and tired but steady, and I press on for two miles after which my brain convinces my body it’s had enough. Walking is right for now and a slower pace helps me notice people have been planting–daisies, mint, lavender, deep green and chartreuse hedges, all beautiful.

My own plants I set out yesterday to get a drink in the rain, choir children on risers belting out beautiful music as their proud mama approaches. The magnolias, hydrangeas and gardenias–summertime’s trifecta–came with the yard so I get zero credit for their blooms year after year. It’s got to feel good to be the star of a summer show, pumping your pretty colors and sweet fragrance into this broken world, appearing regardless of conditions– sickeningly hot, raining for days, or a perfectly simple summer day. I’ve wanted a magnolia bloom I could reach to bring inside but hadn’t found any, but a day later there were two. Nature, what can’t you do?

The quiet house has been expecting my return. There is coffee to make and a deck to enjoy it on, but first the old wicker chair on the front porch (one of two I found at Goodwill years ago for $20) is calling me to sit and finish my podcast. Mel Robbins is interviewing James Patterson who is fascinating and has a new book. Minutes in, I pass out then wake to Mel’s loud voice and my mouth agape. I sit up and try and finish but head off again, mouth open, deliciously in and out of sleep. As I nap, I worry people can see me from the street but remind myself no one cares if I’m a mouth breather.

Of course I’m tired. Friday I could think of no other way to snap out of my funk. Is it my own or the world’s or the toxic combination that hangs so heavy? Moving is reliable, so I walked several hours returning home to dig a garden. It’s been five years since I’ve planted anything other than plastic pots of flowers you bring home to slide inside your planters, which isn’t planting per se. There’s been more to tend to what with chemo and Covid and construction and getting my younger son off to college. Always excuses except today, despite a never-ending punch list, I will hack through Georgia red clay and make something out of nothing. Zinnia and sunflower seeds are going in and with any luck, colorful blooms will come up.

I bought a few plants too, herbs I love the best: basil, chives, mint, Italian parsley, and catnip which I pinched and brought inside, much to Bo’s delight and my own pain. Every one of his claws came out of nowhere to secure my hand which dangled a leaf above him. A different animal than the dried stuff, fresh catnip is I think for cats what crack is for its addicts. Sam isn’t having it, barely smelling it and walking away, smug and prudish, her wide innocent eyes insisting, “I don’t do drugs.”

L-r: My mom’s twin Uncle Pete, Gammy holding me and my cousin Anne & my mom in front of the Fish House in CT.

Today I’m still at it. It’s June 21^st, my grandmother Gammy’s birthday, and in her honor, I’m going to spend the bulk of it outside. The longest day of the year was technically Friday, but for me it’s always the 21^st. Go start things and if there’s still daylight, finish some too. The summer bugs’ song mixes with the birds’ and the soundtrack takes me back to Vero Beach and Sandfly Lane under the live oaks in Gammy’s driveway. We are loaded up with the blue and brown beach towels neatly rolled into her worn straw beach basket. We’ve eaten our Indian River grapefruits cut in half and perfectly sectioned and toasted English muffins with orange marmalade, and now it’s time to head to the beach. Ahhh, if only. Maybe she and my mom are somewhere together continuing the tradition.

But today, I’m on dry land in my plastic Adirondack chair on my deck, and on this morning the coffee is particularly good. I added a little sugar like my sister Anne does every day and like I do sometimes on weekends, using up the Dancing Goats bag. Early bird gets the best coffee and though we’ve got several other kinds, to me these grounds smell divine. Today I’ve started Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, which I scored on sale in a Target end cap months ago, and as I sip on coffee in the thick silence magnificently cut by bugs and birds, I dive into Ann’s brilliant words.

By the time Joe got up, the sun was heating things up and the deck no longer held its sparkle. I made myself a second cup from an old hotel packet of instant I found because there’s lots to do and another boost might propel me further. A day full of projects means a trip to the hardware store. Joe had steel angles for a screen door on his list, and I stepped back into the heat to shop plants. A few sunflower plants on sale then it’s back inside for more zinnia seeds, a nozzle for my new garden hose, bird seed, and a Minute Minder to replace ours that dropped.

The new timer takes me to my childhood kitchen where a square glass Pyrex pan filled with brownie batter cooks in our 350-degree oven. When the timer buzzes and a toothpick comes out clean, we cut the brownies into squares and plate them with a scoop of Breyer’s vanilla on their warm backs. With dessert spoons in hand, we move quickly as the ice cream trails down the squares to lap up this sweet warm/cold slice of heaven.

Today our fridge at home offers nothing inspiring to eat, but the eight-day old strawberries could use a plan. The recipe yields 18 muffins topped with sugar and pecans, and I nibbled on extra nuts as they baked. Strawberries, zinnia seeds, magnolias blossoms, garden hose nozzles, even the annoying mosquito bites on the back of my legs, all of it, this is summer.

On Friday’s Ace Hardware run, I bought a magnet with a long wand. Not a metal detector, but a long stick with a round magnet on its end. The driveway is dotted with remnants from years of construction, and now that the carport is cleaned out, we need a safe path for cars to come in. After five years without cover, the cars won’t know what hit them, and I’m making sure at least it’s not piercing metal. I hover the wand close to the gravel and click! I scored something. Click click click! More still. It’s a well-stocked pond and the fish are biting like crazy. As I hunch over the driveway like an old lady stooped at the shore inspecting shells and marveling with every click, my sister calls. We agree I’ll take a video for her to see the powerful wand and treasures it can catch and she’ll call me back. Click, click, click! There’s more and I quickly text her this proof. With all the excitement, I’d forgotten she was in her car running errands.

Nearly an hour went by, and I’d convinced myself something was wrong. I left Anne a voicemail and sent a text and nothing. Another half hour passed and now I imagined her car must have wrapped around a tree. You see, she’d been tempted to watch my video while driving and that did it. I scanned my life and all I could see were holes void of Anne. I wanted more time with her. I wanted more memories. Then minutes later by some miracle there was her text marveling at the volume and variety of metal. I began ugly crying like I sometimes do when my clean scan results pop up in MyChart like they did again in May. Emory reported my MRI showed “no evidence of cancer.” Cancer? What are you even talking about? Music to my ears and I’ve got Anne back.

I wake up naturally caffeinated so one coffee is plenty to set me on my course for the day. Add in another and you never know what you’ll get. I think I’ve been anxious for some time. I also think that second cup put me over the edge. After the hysteria and retelling the blubbering drama to poor Joe, I dried my tears and felt grateful for it all. Grateful for June 21, the longest day and my beloved grandmother’s birthday often spent at the beach, the scent of summer now firmly planted, and possibilities galore.

The day is still young, and I’ve got more planting to do and driveway metal to attract. When the mosquitoes find a way into my long sleeves and begin snacking on my ankles, I’ll move the day indoors. The coffee’s still fueling my get up and go, and I might tackle puttying or painting projects inside or relax with a glass of wine. Thankfully there is daylight and there is time. If I can stay awake, we might even watch another episode of The Righteous Gemstones. Hilarious, silly, stupid TV I’ve discovered. Happy Summer Solstice, y’all. ☀️

Leaving you with this gem of a sign I just saw near my neighborhood. The world is awfully unsettled, but right now there is this, which I think might be everything.

I’ve always loved June 21, the day you can officially call summer, and my grandmother “Gammy’s” birthday, too. Most years after school let out, we’d pile in our yellow Ford country squire wagon and head down to Vero Beach, Fla., where Gammy and Gampete (Marie and Scranton “Scrip” to their friends) lived. We usually stayed over her birthday, so it was particularly fun. Gammy was summer’s carefree spirit, reliable optimism and nourishing energy rolled into one. My mom’s parents left New England years ago for Florida, stumbling on Vero, a lovely beach town at the start of the tropics, where they’d happily stay.

Gammy was a delight. She put you in a summer mood even when it rained, which being Florida, was most afternoons. We’d play jacks on the floor and nibble brownies, two kinds, with nuts for the grownups and smooth for us. They were always cold, perfectly cut, and neatly stacked in floral tins between sheets of wax paper. Beach days we’d walk to Gammy’s swimming hole, where she would extend her hand so I could brave the patch of seaweed underfoot, and she’d steady us as our slight bodies broke the waves crashing to shore. To reach this place you had to step way down and then back up to a sandbar, which we could find surfacing at low tide. The swimming hole felt like ours alone, as the endless summer did.

Gampete, in contrast, was prone to being grumpy. He’d played a round of golf that day maybe, and I’ll bet his back hurt, or his score was lousy. Or both. In from the beach, he was the gatekeeper. You had to stop at the door, clutching the molding for support, so he could inspect the bottoms of your feet. Tar that washed up on the beach would usually end up there, and Gampete was ready with a mineral spirits soaked paper towel. The house’s beautiful white carpet once again was spared.

Today was the longest day of the year, and I noticed little bits of summer seeping in all day and yesterday too, more than I can remember even from multiple summers combined. I made some of them happen, but others just showed up, feeding off the summery vibe. How I got this concentration of summer for two days straight, and spilling into a third, I’ll never know. You don’t question a happy convergence of events like this. Yesterday in particular was summer at its finest. If you asked me what I did, I could have truthfully responded: Planted flowers with children. Ate cupcakes outside. Watered plants. Laughed.

Later I walked my dog and ended up in a newsy catch up with a good friend along the way. Back home, I cut mint from a pot on my deck and made mojitos, which I’d been craving for weeks. (Note: If you’re going to muddle mint, go easy or it’ll tear, and you’ll end up with wonky green bits in your teeth. And if you’re going to try and grow mint, don’t skimp on the water, as I’ve usually done. This year is my first producing a tall deep green bushy plant, and I have water to thank. That and sun of course, too.) Instead of back inside for A/C and TV, I took my glass outside to the hammock where I sat and sipped, feet grounded to the earth, and I looked up to bats circling the sky. At the edge of the yard, I noticed a few rabbits had stepped onto this idyllic summer set, nibbling clover as they tracked my position.

Ina Garten’s pesto. Superb, like everything she makes.

As the sky went dark, I went inside, and on the way cut basil from the other planter (see previous note on water which also applies to basil, or anything you want to grow strong, yourself included). In minutes I made a big batch of pesto for supper and to share, this time adding walnuts, which cut the bite of the basil and garlic with its buttery texture. I drained hot spaghetti and coated it with the pesto, and washed it down with diluted mojito remnants, tasting summer.

With the longest day on my hands the next day, I ended up driving to South Carolina to pick up my son and his friends from their week-long university science program. Three hours of open road and sparkling lakes out the window shifted my mind into neutral. Puffy child-drawn clouds floating ahead reminded me of summers past and gave the atmosphere an innocence it desperately needed, far away from disputes over air space, missiles, global warming, and Washington.

I recommend traveling to another state on the longest day of the year — you experience the day differently, and instead of feeling like a spectator, your own path stretches out and moves in time with the day’s.

Out of habit, I turned on the radio only to hear POTUS defending another one of his idiotic moves or comments, and in an instant, it was radio off, back to music and summer scenery. You can just choose to turn it off, I’ve discovered.

Tonight, our town held its annual summer solstice beach party, drawing kids carrying pails and shovels, pulling red wagons and pushing dump trucks and diggers to the square where blocked streets are piled with (literally) tons of beach sand. Every year, parents and their children flock to Decatur’s Beach Party, where couples sway under palm trees to beach music holding frozen margaritas, or play on the ground sifting sand through their fingers while their kids do the same, and move and mold sand. The best summer block party you can imagine delivers happy exhausted kids at bedtime, and offers free sandbox sand for the taking the next day.

I keep wondering how I can dial up summer’s brightness to shine louder than the day’s usual sobering news, and I’ve found it’s quite simple. Turn off your tv, your radio, your negative distraction and go to your kitchen or outside and find or make a new summer memory. I know you’ve got one. Is it spitting watermelon seeds, or stubbing your toes in a neighborhood pool where some nice mom patched you up with a Band-Aid, squirting Bactine on the wound? Or catching lightning bugs in pickle jars with perforated lids, holes your parents made with their split wood handled ice pick? Or maybe walking on your gravel driveway re-callousing your feet all over again, or on a prickly lawn in bare feet to get to your neighbor’s trampoline. Do you remember the smell of earth under your fingernails as you dug for worms in your yard? Maybe you didn’t catch any fish that trip, but still, you came prepared. Did you used to loll under ceiling fans slowly turning on hot sticky Georgia nights?

It’s now the 22nd and I’m still up, not yet ready to let go of this day. I know the ones ahead are already shortening, and I still haven’t been to a pool. I did stop at a lemonade stand the other day, however, and the boy who sold me a $1 glass reported $60 for his day’s earnings! A lot has changed yet so much hasn’t. The lemonade was better than I remember, but the beads of sweat forming on his face from a day at it, were exactly what I remember from my own years ago. There’s really no excuse to not stop and drink the lemonade.

Sitting here in the AC, hints of winter are blowing across my barely tanned legs, and this house’s thick plaster walls have drowned out the bugs’ song outside. Like that tube of toothpaste you refuse to discard before reaching for another, the one you flatten and roll, and repeat flattening and rolling until you get it all out, after these last few summery days, I don’t want to waste one bit of what’s left. Summer’s a lovely cheap date, maybe one of your best.

Reliable zinnias return from last year’s seeds. They’re the best cut flowers or just leave them alone and watch how tall they get.

Tag: Summer Solstice

It’s Summer

Six, Two, One, SUMMER!