84 – Summer *

Special thanks to Amy for providing the photos. Amy is in the USA and I encourage readers to visit her photography blog Heaven on Earth. Amy is currently dealing with family matters, so she has blocked comments. But still visit to see her photos and feel free to comment on her images here. Besides, she may make a surprise appearance here. Amy’s work is copyrighted by Amy Rose Photography.

This post is also responding to Marsha’s Wednesday Writing Challenge. I invite you to not only visit Marsha and those linked in her comments, but to participate.

Click the video above for 2 minutes of background waves while reading.

I like walking on the beach. It is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet.

I walk thinking about the contrast of this place now and how it must be in summer – the prime time for the vacation business. Yes – me here in the winter thinking about summer.

Today is partly cloudy/partly sunny with a cool, brisk wind. Although my feet like the cool water of this season, the water would be chilly for those wanting to swim. The summer here will be hot and humid with the water being the main refreshing source. People are scattered now on the beach, but the summer beach here is a time for crowds.

Summer – the hottest of the four seasons – a time when the Earth’s axis is pointing toward the sun. A time when summer is in one hemisphere, but winter in the opposite hemisphere. A time some of us associate with June, July, and August – but others with December, January, and February.

Summer is a time we associate with longer periods of daylight and shorter periods of the night. Yet, the day we call the longest day of the year is in early summer, so the amount of daylight decreases as we pass through the majority of summer.

Some cultures designate summer as a time between two national holidays that serve as the unofficial beginning and end of the season.

To me, summer is a time of hot, dry, and humid – a time of less rain – but a time of sudden downpours followed by steamy air. But in other parts of the world, summer can be a wet season, or a time for hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, and typhoons.

Summer is when people take advantage of the warm temperatures by maximizing outdoor activities like swimming, water skiing, fishing, boating, sunning, and many more. For others, summer is about baseball, golf, tennis, and soccer.

Summer is a season for activities on the lake – fishing, swimming, boating, skiing, sailing, sunning – simply sharing the water with ducks, geese, swans, and fish. Some people will also camp on the grounds surrounding a lake and then make it a place for campfires at night.

Summer is prime time for the beach here – beaches packed with people, heavy traffic on the streets, and busy restaurants. Beaches filled with many umbrellas, plastic buckets for sand, sunglasses, beach chairs, sounds of personalized music, beach volleyball, busy pools, many boaters, the buzz of jet skis, parasailers in the sky, and more.

Kids come to the beach to swim, play with the waves, make sandcastles, fly kites, play sand volleyball, look for interesting shells, hit or kick a beach ball, ride jet skis, snorkel, ride boogie boards, be in bare feet, make new friends, or just lay in the sun.

Summer is a time of birds singing – sounds keeping birders happily engaged. Summer is also when the buzz of a variety of bees, flies, wasps, and other insects join the aviary chorus – but at nighttime, nature’s symphony shifts to crickets, frogs, and the hoots of owls.

Summer is the time for lazy, hazy days with a breeze helping us stay cool as we sit in the shade reading a book with the threat of sleep taking us away from the book. Summer is a time of searching for four-leaf clovers by day, and catching fireflies at night – a time for sunglasses, flip-flops, shorts, tee shirts, straw hats, and swimwear.

For kids, summer starts when they race out of school with much glee. Without school, now they can focus on playing with friends, sleeping in, being outside, picnics, swimming, staying up late, vacations, dancing with shadows, hoping for a visit by the ice cream truck, parks, fireworks, waterslides, snowcones, outdoor hoses, sprinklers, star gazing, refreshing cold drinks, outdoor concerts, midday popsicle, swimming pools, fireflies in the evening and night sky, festive holidays, camping, local fairs and festivals, water balloon fights, family reunions, parks, and playgrounds.

Summer is a time for the mouth-watering aromas from outdoor grills and smoking barbeque pits – a time for licking refreshing ice cream on a hot day. Summer is a time for freedom, happiness, and dreams.

Summer is a time for farmer’s markets and roadside stands for locally grown fruits and vegetables – a time for eating watermelon, cantaloupes, fresh tomatoes, and recently picked corn still in the husk.

Summer is a time for blossoms of annual and perennial flowers to accompany nature’s blanket of green. We use watering cans, hoses, and sprinklers to keep the joyful colors, nurture vegetables, and keep lawns green – yet, the brown of the summer drought causes us to yearn for rain.

Summer is the time for mowing lawns, riding bicycles, active swimming pools, walking on warm pavements, and more – a time for relentless sunbeams as if the sun was shouting to be heard.

Summer is a busy time for construction projects – a time for hammers, jackhammers, bulldozers, orange barrels, and traffic detours.

The summer sun, the bright warm disc in the sky, touches life the most in summer – a time we expose more of our skin allowing the sun to touch us with kisses of warmth that tans some people but burns others. A time when skin darkens, but hair lightens.

The summer sun is why plants of all sizes reach toward the sky in a competitive way – tall majestic trees dominating life around them. That’s OK because the plants on the forest floor still get enough sun to meet their needs, whereas the grains and grasses in the open field thrive without the presence of trees.

Summer is a time for drifting – drifting in a canoe down a lazy river, drifting on a raft in a pool, drifting asleep while sitting on a chair in a cool spot on a hot day – a time when even the wind is hot – not refreshing until we realize the feeling would be worse without it

The days of summer seem long – early sunrise to the late sunset. The early sunrise is a time of calm, a time of the awakening of birds, glistening morning dew on the grass, a time of freshness in the air. Because the sun is low in the sky, some people walk or run during this time to beat the heat of the day.

Summer is a romantic time – love filling the air – being blinded by summer love – a time that is real – a consuming spell one feels – a love delivering shooting stars of emotions. Summer love is the summer moon together with beating hearts and a lovely rose.

The summer love stands apart from the rest of the seasons. Summer love is one everyone thinks will last forever, but they don’t know it will only last through unspoken memories. The summer love will never be forgotten

Summer is a time of much, many, and more – much sun, more daylight, many activities, much fun, many joys, and more life. I’m not sure about memories because life isn’t seasonal. After all, I write this about summer during my winter because I like walking on the beach. It is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet.

See what other bloggers have posted about adaptations

• Summer Joy (a poem by a visitor here)
• Summer with Burroughs (a poem by a visitor here)
• Summer Rain (a poem by a visitor here)
• A Very Short Summer (an essay by an occasional visitor here)
• Rain of Summer (a poem written or audio)
• 20 Books of Summer 2021 (a suggested reading list)

Next Post: Hands – Tuesday 15 June @ 1 AM (Eastern US)

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