Summer

We just celebrated the summer solstice in North Carolina and the longest day of the year.  I don't want to think about the shorter days to come because I'm just getting into the swing of summer.

The days start early usually with a morning walk around the lake. The cool mountain air, sweetness of wild honeysuckle bushes, the loamy smell of lake water mixed with the scent of freshly mown grass embraces me each morning.  Mist rises off the still water of the lake as the sun comes up.  All around me is the cacophony of trilling, cooing, whistling, and chirping birds against the distant whooshing sound of traffic. It feels like an oasis in the middle of a growing city. I walk past the beach at one end of the lake where the leftover castles and moats dug yesterday by children are still visible in the sand. Plastic buckets and shovels, beach towels, and “noodles” lie abandoned. The regular early morning joggers and dog walkers pass me on the trail with a nod or a "good morning". Many are plugged into IPods and IPhones . I never understand why they want to block out the sounds of nature.

Summer makes me want to be outdoors most of the time.  I can’t focus on an indoor project except for cooking which is a necessity.  But even that involves my herb garden in pots on the deck.  This year I have thick curly parsley to pick from, two pots of thriving basil, thyme that survived the winter indoors, rosemary, tarragon, oregano, mint, dill, and even lavender for delicious sweet scent.  Before starting lunch or supper, I grab my scissors and am out the door to decide which herbs I will add to what I am making.  Most of the time I don’t follow a recipe but experiment instead. Picking my own fresh herbs is so satisfying.

I have replaced heavy soups I made in the winter with a summer salads. I try new recipes constantly – everything from arugula, corn, and tomato salad to quinoa, to pasta vegetable salad to farro salad with beans and feta. We keep the pitcher with green tea full in the refrigerator and the Filipino basket on the kitchen counter piled with fresh fruit especially after trips to the Farmer’s Market.  We haven't eaten so well in years – not since the days we shopped at the outdoor feria in Santiago, Chile or headed to the Carrefour in Dubai where fresh fruits and vegetables from every conceivable country in the world were for sale.  In Manila and Costa Rica we ate locally grown pineapples, papayas, and mangoes.  But summer in Western North Carolina is rich in with farm-grown fruits and vegetables.

Summer brings sudden thunderstorms and showery rains.  On weekdays the drone of mowers permeates the neighborhood and in the evenings you can hear the whirring and clicking of sprinklers watering the pristine lawns.  The compulsion to be outdoors makes me take a lawn chair into the shade and read for an afternoon or write in my journal.  There are still hours of daylight once the dinner dishes are in the dishwasher. We can walk the surrounding streets, watching the new houses go up, perhaps meet a new neighbor, or catch up with ones we already know.

Summer is when we go to classical music concerts at the Brevard Music Center. We can be outdoors as we did last Sunday watching Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops conduct the summer Brevard Orchestra playing works by Ravel and Rachmaninoff.  Brevard is the Tanglewood of the southeast and has become a much anticipated part of our summer in Western North Carolina. Our summer also  means going to Flat Rock Playhouse in Hendersonville to see favorite shows like the recent “My Fair Lady”.  

While I love the long days of summer, I realized recently that they don’t make as much difference as when I lived a thousand miles north in Vermont. There, the long summer and short winter days were more dramatically contrasted.  We looked forward all year to more daylight.
  The summer solstice is the official beginning of summer and, no matter where I live, I like the change and all that comes with it.   Right now,  I want to be immersed in summer activities and nature around me.  I am not ready to think about fall or winter. But, as summer moves on towards fall, I know there will come a day when I'll be ready and eager for the next season.  I always am.