The year is basically over...

Or is it? A strategy to enjoy the rest of summer

My sister texted me on July 5th: “Saw my first pumpkin.” We do this every year, an ongoing bit that once you see Halloween or autumnal decorations in the aisles of Target or TJ Maxx, the year is basically over. 

The first pumpkin sighting seems to happen earlier and earlier each year. And by capitalism’s logic — even though we haven’t hit back-to-school yet — pumpkins means it’s Christmas. Next up: Cadbury’s Mini Eggs will be in the shops. You’re living on borrowed time.

I think it’s possible, common even, to move through your entire year or even life with this Christmas-in-July feeling. A sense that you are always behind, that your number is up, you’ll never catch up now. A mild, pervasive panic that time is passing and an accompanying sense that it’s a personal shortcoming of yours (and yours alone) that you can’t keep up. No one else is like this — they have their shit together.

Here’s a sampling from my own troubling internal dialogue: I haven’t gotten a book deal yet, and it somehow seems like every other writer I know has. There are so many house projects that need doing, but also we are exhausted and need to rest and don’t have enough money to hire people to do them. Will my career ever get back on track, even though I probably won’t be able to afford to work full time until my child is like 4, and by then AI will probably mean there is no work for me to do? Oh, summer is nearly over and I still haven’t figured out swim lessons and I think my kid’s shoes are already too small for him. 

Exhausting, isn’t it? 

But I reckon late summer is the ideal time to combat that Christmas-in-July feeling. The sensory extremes of any season invite you to dwell for a moment, to stay a while, to seek out the kind of temporal experiences that are only available right now. And a hot summer day is the ideal invitation to do less.

I spend a lot of time sitting on the grass or the steps outside of our house, eye level with the flowers — the vantage point of a toddler. After not seeing many bees for the entire month of June and early July (this is unfortunately not my imagination; bees and butterflies are at very low levels this year in the UK) they’re now all over the pollinator-friendly flowers I planted just for them: scabiosas, verbena, calendula, lavender, fuschias, echinacea, borage, and cherry lips salvia. Each time my son sees one, he yells “BEEEEEE!” and I feel like we’re cheering them — and the entire ecosystem they service — on. 

Recently, to combat the aforementioned internal monologue, I try to imagine myself as a flower in late summer, done with all its work. Sitting on the ground, I watch as a bee gracefully lands and furiously retrieves some nectar. Meanwhile the plant, having worked all year for this moment — flowering is its chance to be fertilized and hopefully become an ancestor to more plants — sits in a posture of receptivity.

It’s not trying to do anything. Not anxious about whether or not it will fulfil its evolutionary imperative this year. Not worrying about the fact that in a month or two, it will either begin to decompose, be pulled out of the ground, or cut down to the studs to start this process all over again — with a long, cold winter ahead. It’s just here right now, receptive to what is, all striving and effort behind it. In bloom.

Those flowers have no more certainty about the future than you or I. Which is why the task at hand is not to get it all done so you can finally relax. But rather to rest in the knowledge it will never be done; you’ll still have to work hard to flower again next year. But there’s still so much to notice and enjoy in the meantime.

Four summer things I’m loving 

• There is a bench along the side of our house that gets maximum sun exposure throughout the day and is perfectly situated for neighborhood watching. It’s become the official place to take a break: a morning coffee in the sun, an afternoon Diet Coke when you need a break from Zoom, a well-earned glass of wine after the toddler is in bed. I know in six months I will walk past this bench and find it impossible to imagine sitting there, basking in 10 minutes of sun. So I’m soaking it up while I can.

• Speaking of bees, humming bee breath — or bhramari pranayama — is perhaps the lowest-effort, highest-impact mindfulness practice there is. Good for doing in your car before you re-enter your house. Take a deep breath in, pause at the top, and then exhale a long, slow hum out, keeping your lips closed. Put your hands on the center of your chest (or around your ears for a more intense sonic experience) and feel the noise reverberate around your skeleton. Repeat a few times, and then stop, but keep your eyes closed. Take a few moments to notice the uncanny calm and quiet inside your skull before you open your eyes and re-enter the world.

• My husband made a cornhole board for my son’s second birthday party (Because our parental brains are fried, we naturally forgot to bring it out on the day of the party.) But we’ve been playing it on the sunny evenings after dinner as a way to avoid pre-bedtime screen time. It’s such a silly and mindless game — the perfect blend of skill and dumb luck. I love the “THUD!” the bean bag makes as it hits the board.

• We recently went to lunch at a very lovely house and this salad recipe from Ottolenghi was on the menu. The perfect combination of crunch and acid and fat — I’m going to make it this weekend. 

I would genuinely love to hear the small summer moments you’re enjoying. Don’t tell me about your fabulous vacation, though. I want the low stakes stuff: your homemade summer beverage or how you maximize relaxation during your toddler’s nap. Drop them in the comments below.

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