Summer used to be my least favorite holiday. I'm not a huge fan of the heat, and nothing else about it appealed to me. By contrast, the rest of the seasons did. I loved the freshness of Spring, and comfy-ness of fall, and I loved winter largely because of Christmas. Summer just didn't do it for me.
But that's all changed. When I was growing up and it snowed in our neighborhood, the plows piled all the snow into a big hill on our cul-de-sac. It was awesome. We had so much fun sledding down it and making snowmen and having snowball fights. As an adult, I lived in Pittsburgh for a while, and that cured any affection I had for winter. Being an adult, you have to deal with a lot of things that you don't have to when you're young. No one expects a youngster to walk far distances in the snow. But when I was in college or working in New York, that's what you did when you had to get somewhere. When you're young, you don't have to shovel the snow, salt your icy steps so as to not get sued by a visitor, or deal with a weak car. I still love Christmas though.
And I still love Fall for many reasons. It contains my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, plus another that has really grown on me lately, Halloween. I love sweaters and the way the leaves look and college football and a new TV schedule. The main reason I love Fall, though, is that I love the beginning of things. I don't think I will ever stop thinking of the Fall as the beginning of the New Year. Pre-Blackberry, I loved to get a new planner every September, and the feeling in the air still reminds of school supplies and getting organized.
Speaking of starting new, I also love that other temperate season, Spring. My favorite thing about Spring is the style you see around. Much like GirlTuesday, I'm a preppy girl. I love polos and pastels and feminine dresses. I love baby showers and weddings. I can't get enough of the sun shining bright during Easter Egg hunts and picnics and long dog walks.
As the grown-up that I am, I have really come to appreciate summer. In honor of GirlMonday, here are my top 5:
1. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of my day in front of the computer. I love that when I'm all done in the afternoon, it stays sunny for hours!
2. I love that people seem more willing to get out and do fun stuff- even a couch potato like me!
3. Blockbuster summer movies. Midnight showings in Manhattan- it's the best.
4. Wedding/BBQ/Vacation season!
5. Also-- I. LOVE. ICE CREAM. It is an unhealthy, destructive relationship that I hope to maintain forever.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Until the Day is Night and Night Becomes the Day
I never thought I'd look back on my college summers as the best summers of my life. At the time, I never would have thought that those brief interludes-- spent working to save money for textbooks and then circling the town, looking for parties after the waitressing shift ended-- would now signify freedom and youth and fun. As if it would all one day be nothing more than a thing of the past.
May and part of June was spent still at the New York City dorm, wrapping up exams and final projects- spending a lot of free time with my college friends. These are particularly blissful memories of walking to the reaches of the city in the sun, getting cold teas from the Japanese tea house, going movie screenings at the college center, hanging out after at Union Square with the skateboarders, talking and talking and talking (about what, I couldn't tell you), sitting on a stone bench at Washington Square Park with the bongo players and the street dancers, and watching the season's last episode of Felicity with my dorm-mates (and crying) before we all packed up to go home.
July and August was spent back home on Long Island, with my "home friends," waiting tables and driving to the beach on my days off.
After the night shift ended, around 12AM or 1, my friend Missy and I would change into the clothes we kept in her car and drive off to the Hamptons clubs where we'd dance until 7AM. Then we'd go home, sleep for a few hours, then wake up in time for our shift to start again in the afternoon.
It was pure insanity. Our parents called us "vampires."
There was one summer I worked the day shift in a coffee shop. I slept when I got home from work- around 6 in the evening, then woke up at around midnight to go out. There were too many nights where I never slept at all, and I watched the sun come up and got that sick, sinking feeling in my stomach at the sound of the first birds chirping and I knew it was time to head back to the foaming static of the cappuccino machine.
We had a group of summer friends-- all waiters and hostesses, all much older than us. It was one of the few times in my life where a group had no ill dynamics. Everyone was out to dance and have fun. They rented a big house together, that became the party house. After the clubs would kick us out, the guys would hang black garbage bags over the windows in the party house, hang Christmas lights and put out some lava lamps and we'd have our own dance party in the living room.
In the hours before our shifts would start, we'd haul our uniforms to the beach in garment bags on the back seats of our cars, and sleep in the sand until it was time to go to work.
They really were endless, those summers. I sort of assumed, though I'm sure I never really thought about it, that all summers would be as carefree and wonderful.
It now reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the movie, The Hours:
I can vividly remember the last night we danced all night. It was 7AM in the biggest club in eastern Long Island, with a deep and wide dance floor- a giant pit of a former factory with a cloud of condensation from sweat above hundreds of bobbing heads, and people dancing on the balcony hanging over the pit. The DJ played his last song of the summer-- Stevie Wonder's As-- 7 minutes of one of the best songs ever written, that counted down the last moments of the last summer of pure nothingness. The club dropped white foam and bubbles from the ceiling and spun the lights joyously. We were singing and dancing like an end-of-summer ritual, sending the beach gods back to their autumn retreats. I remember seeing snapshots of ourselves flash before me, each time the strobe illuminated us. What would we become? It didn't matter. What happened at the end of the summer? It didn't matter. We just turned and turned and turned, with our arms outstretched, swallowing the moment whole.
***
The 5 (million) things I love about summer:
1. Summer nights in the city-- tables go outside, bars spill into the streets, people are dressed up in glittery gauzes and sun dresses and flip flops. The idea of going to see a movie seems a lot less depressing, because when you get out it's alive and the whole city is awake. You can walk home, leisurely and enjoy it. People are happy, subway cars are full of noise and happiness.
2. Letting my hair air dry. As if I were meant to be in such weather all year round. As if being able to walk outside with wet hair signifies some freedom-- I think it does.
3. The beach, the beach, the beach. Scarf around my hair, walking there, plopping down, getting up for some volleyball, a popsicle, knowing the lifeguards, the sounds of little kids playing in the sand, nap in the sun...
4. Running in the sun. Free of thermals, quilted vests, hats and gloves. Sweating as sweating was meant to be.
5. Senses alive. I suddenly want to write and climb rocks and bicycle and paint and sing and dance and do everything as if there's just not enough time. In the winter there seems to be so much time, too much time. I want to visit everyone I haven't seen in ages, I want to over-book myself, plan dinners and parties and make myself a better person. The sun pulls me out of bed and stays out long enough for me to get home safe and still feeling it's energy under my skin. There is nothing-- nothing!-- like a nap after a day spent outdoors. Everything feels different, I can feel everything.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
. . . and the living is easy
It’s funny to me how summer can be so many different things throughout the years. When you’re young, summer means an escape from the classroom. It means early morning swim practice, followed by a full day by the pool. It means multi-hour car rides en route to summer vacation, trying desperately to survive the pokes, prods, kicks, and flatulence of your siblings in the back seat. Summer means sleep-away camp and reunions with once-a-year friends. It means post-cards, pool parties, and popsicles. It means catching fireflies, growing tadpoles, playing capture the flag, and trying desperately to heal constantly skinned knees.
By the time you reach high-school, summer means finding a summer job that you can fit in around morning and evening swim practices. It means focusing more on your tan than on your tree-fort, and it means a later curfew and fling romances. And it means the final days at home before starting a new phase.
In college, summer is the strange blend of old and new. It is the return home for the first time since being away, and trying to determine how much you and old friends still have in common. It is realizing the strength of friendships, but missing new friends. It means long-distance romances, and learning how to live with parents again after a year of freedom. Summer is the pursuit of the perfect internship, or the excitement of the return to campus.
After college, summer shifts entirely. Rather than nine intense months punctuated with three months of freedom, all of the sudden summer arrives and the only real change is the need to figure out how to stay cool in work clothes in ninety degree heat. Those of us who went to graduate school delayed that transition a few years, though we did find ourselves wearing the very same suits during out stints as interns and summer-associates. But regardless of whether reality strikes at twenty-two or twenty-six, the truth becomes painfully clear: somewhere after twenty, summer loses the same charm it once had.
Sure, there are outdoor happy hours and the occasional road trip or even a lengthy vacation, but the lazy days are left to weekend afternoons. There’s a chore for every fire-fly, and all of the sudden it’s your job to not only shuck but also cook and clean up after the corn-on-the cob. As you might be able to tell, Summer is when I feel the oldest, and when quitting my job to become a teacher seems the most appealing—three months free from the daily routine; three months to pursue hobbies, budding interests, or moonlight in a field of your true passion. It really is unfortunate that more industries can’t adopt such an approach. . . Guess it will just have to be a summer day dream for now.
By the time you reach high-school, summer means finding a summer job that you can fit in around morning and evening swim practices. It means focusing more on your tan than on your tree-fort, and it means a later curfew and fling romances. And it means the final days at home before starting a new phase.
In college, summer is the strange blend of old and new. It is the return home for the first time since being away, and trying to determine how much you and old friends still have in common. It is realizing the strength of friendships, but missing new friends. It means long-distance romances, and learning how to live with parents again after a year of freedom. Summer is the pursuit of the perfect internship, or the excitement of the return to campus.
After college, summer shifts entirely. Rather than nine intense months punctuated with three months of freedom, all of the sudden summer arrives and the only real change is the need to figure out how to stay cool in work clothes in ninety degree heat. Those of us who went to graduate school delayed that transition a few years, though we did find ourselves wearing the very same suits during out stints as interns and summer-associates. But regardless of whether reality strikes at twenty-two or twenty-six, the truth becomes painfully clear: somewhere after twenty, summer loses the same charm it once had.
Sure, there are outdoor happy hours and the occasional road trip or even a lengthy vacation, but the lazy days are left to weekend afternoons. There’s a chore for every fire-fly, and all of the sudden it’s your job to not only shuck but also cook and clean up after the corn-on-the cob. As you might be able to tell, Summer is when I feel the oldest, and when quitting my job to become a teacher seems the most appealing—three months free from the daily routine; three months to pursue hobbies, budding interests, or moonlight in a field of your true passion. It really is unfortunate that more industries can’t adopt such an approach. . . Guess it will just have to be a summer day dream for now.
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Dog Days of Summer
Summer is my most absolute favorite time of year, so I’m going to ask everyone this week to name your top 5 favorite things about summer (you can totally do it as a sidebar to your regular blog, don’t let me intrude on your blogging plans…)
Here’s my list.
1. Ice Cream
http://www.creolecreamery.com/
Any excuse to eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is fine by me, and the start of summer provides just enough motivation for me to get out of the office at 3 in the afternoon to walk over to Marble Slab, or throw on enough clothes at 11 on Tuesday night to drive out to the Tastee Freeze (mmmmm, and they’re open until midnight), or dust off the ice cream maker for the best peach ice cream ever made (email me if you want to the recipe – but don’t wait too long or you’ll need the one for blackberry ice cream instead!) I don’t discriminate much when it comes to ice cream. I can do anything from froyo, to the cheap stuff, to vanilla with mix-ins, to B&J. And I can do it in a freshly made waffle cone, or I can do it straight from the limp, disintegrating gallon container on my couch. Whatever the vehicle, whatever the flavor, I’m sure to be eating as much as I can in the summer.
2. Long Days and Great Sunsets
I used to live in Memphis, home of the most gorgeous sunsets you will ever see, so like with BBQ, I got a little spoiled in my time there. So when summer rolls around, I always look forward to enjoying the long, hot days, and the inevitable beautiful sunset that comes with them. Now, I’m the first to admit, it’s a little hard to get a good view when you’re at 2800 feet surrounded by 6000 foot high mountains, but lucky for me I’m on the road plenty during this time of year, so I’m guaranteed to get at least one or two good sunsets. The picture above is from near Carmel in CA. I would have included one from Memphis, but they all include a shot of me sweating profusely. Mmmm, Memphis.
3. Baseball Season
Anyone who knows me knows I LOVVVE me some baseball. Men in tight pants, hot dogs, beer, and sunshine. Oh, and ice cream. Nothing goes together better. If you’ve never had the experience of sitting in a stadium on a weekDAY afternoon, watching a game, drinking a beer, and not being at work, I recommend it for everyone. A good park to check out is Citizen’s in Philly. Or PNC – just ask GF.
4. The Lake
I have the great honor of being invited to spend a week (or weeks if I could spare the time) at Keuka Lake (NY) each summer. While it’s a scant 14+ hour drive, the 7-10 days spent sunning lakeside, skiing, tubing (okay, flying out of the tube at 30 miles an hour and spending the rest of the week watching the bruise on the backside go from blue to green….), boating, blueberry picking, reading, wine tasting, and sleeping late generally make up for the 28-30 hours getting there and back. I’m already itching to get driving.
5. Swimming Dogs
GirlFairway is a mix. People are all the time asking me what kind of dog she is (and my favorite response has become “custom breed”). The shelter told me she was part Akita and part Golden, but she’s definitely got some Chow in her as well (see the tail above as well as the black tongue you can’t see). Chows HATE water. Or so I hear. But Goldens love water. So there’s there ever raging battle in GirlFairway’s head that probably goes something like this: “Swim! Don’t Swim! Swim! Don’t Swim!” But it’s the Akita that breaks the tie in the summer. She gets so hot with all that fur (this year she is working on shedding herself a playmate) that she has to cool off. So the water wins and she swims. It’s so funny to watch because you can still see the battle going on in her head as she paddles around out there. “I’m going out further! I’m going back to shore! I’m getting cooler, yay! I’m wet, boo!”
So to all of you out there, enjoy the dog days of summer. Next week those days start to get shorter.
Here’s my list.
1. Ice Cream
http://www.creolecreamery.com/
Any excuse to eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is fine by me, and the start of summer provides just enough motivation for me to get out of the office at 3 in the afternoon to walk over to Marble Slab, or throw on enough clothes at 11 on Tuesday night to drive out to the Tastee Freeze (mmmmm, and they’re open until midnight), or dust off the ice cream maker for the best peach ice cream ever made (email me if you want to the recipe – but don’t wait too long or you’ll need the one for blackberry ice cream instead!) I don’t discriminate much when it comes to ice cream. I can do anything from froyo, to the cheap stuff, to vanilla with mix-ins, to B&J. And I can do it in a freshly made waffle cone, or I can do it straight from the limp, disintegrating gallon container on my couch. Whatever the vehicle, whatever the flavor, I’m sure to be eating as much as I can in the summer.
2. Long Days and Great Sunsets
I used to live in Memphis, home of the most gorgeous sunsets you will ever see, so like with BBQ, I got a little spoiled in my time there. So when summer rolls around, I always look forward to enjoying the long, hot days, and the inevitable beautiful sunset that comes with them. Now, I’m the first to admit, it’s a little hard to get a good view when you’re at 2800 feet surrounded by 6000 foot high mountains, but lucky for me I’m on the road plenty during this time of year, so I’m guaranteed to get at least one or two good sunsets. The picture above is from near Carmel in CA. I would have included one from Memphis, but they all include a shot of me sweating profusely. Mmmm, Memphis.
3. Baseball Season
Anyone who knows me knows I LOVVVE me some baseball. Men in tight pants, hot dogs, beer, and sunshine. Oh, and ice cream. Nothing goes together better. If you’ve never had the experience of sitting in a stadium on a weekDAY afternoon, watching a game, drinking a beer, and not being at work, I recommend it for everyone. A good park to check out is Citizen’s in Philly. Or PNC – just ask GF.
4. The Lake
I have the great honor of being invited to spend a week (or weeks if I could spare the time) at Keuka Lake (NY) each summer. While it’s a scant 14+ hour drive, the 7-10 days spent sunning lakeside, skiing, tubing (okay, flying out of the tube at 30 miles an hour and spending the rest of the week watching the bruise on the backside go from blue to green….), boating, blueberry picking, reading, wine tasting, and sleeping late generally make up for the 28-30 hours getting there and back. I’m already itching to get driving.
5. Swimming Dogs
GirlFairway is a mix. People are all the time asking me what kind of dog she is (and my favorite response has become “custom breed”). The shelter told me she was part Akita and part Golden, but she’s definitely got some Chow in her as well (see the tail above as well as the black tongue you can’t see). Chows HATE water. Or so I hear. But Goldens love water. So there’s there ever raging battle in GirlFairway’s head that probably goes something like this: “Swim! Don’t Swim! Swim! Don’t Swim!” But it’s the Akita that breaks the tie in the summer. She gets so hot with all that fur (this year she is working on shedding herself a playmate) that she has to cool off. So the water wins and she swims. It’s so funny to watch because you can still see the battle going on in her head as she paddles around out there. “I’m going out further! I’m going back to shore! I’m getting cooler, yay! I’m wet, boo!”
So to all of you out there, enjoy the dog days of summer. Next week those days start to get shorter.
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