Summer Love Songs and Savoring Each Day
It's the last day of August. I can't quite believe it. Throughout the month I've been noticing the beginnings of fall. It seems early this year.
Summer's my season and although autumn can be beautiful its arrival always makes me a bit melancholy.
I will miss:
cut flowers from the garden
tomatoes and peppers and herbs (and all the other edibles)
endless salads (kale, kale and more kale)
being barefoot (or if shoes are necessary, sandals)
leaving the house without a jacket
spending whole days outside
having the windows and doors open (and cats stretched out in windowsills)
bees and butterflies and hummingbirds
the songs of crickets and cicadas
late sunsets
the color green (and all the other colors)
I could keep going, but you get the picture.
This week in our area there's been terrible flooding. We weren't hit badly as we live in town at a high point (and my parents, out in the country, are on a ridge), but it's heartbreaking to see devastating flooding happening more and more frequently so close to where we live. It puts my troubles in perspective. Reminds me, again, to savor each day.
So instead of lamenting the loss of all I love about the summer, I've been making a point to savor the days.
Each day.
I try to stop what I'm doing periodically and pay attention to everything around me, to be fully present. Stand in the garden and feel the grass between my toes, to note the perfect beauty of the moment and send off a thank you to the universe.
Three years ago on my old blog I wrote about painting a "love song to summer".
It's one of my favorite paintings, the biggest I've ever done. Truly a love song to my favorite season.
Some years I paint a lot during the summer. Some years I don't. Creativity ebbs and flows. Energy ebbs and flows. In the summer it's always a challenge to stay inside when my garden is calling me to BE OUTSIDE. It's a bit ironic because summer holds the most inspiration for my art.
In a way you could say that a majority of my paintings are love songs to summer. This one, finished the other day, certainly is.
As are the vegetable (or fruit, depending on your perspective) paintings I've been inspired to paint this week:
What better way to celebrate the joys of summer than to paint them?
Although, I think eating them is a prefect celebration, too. In the summer with abundant garden produce it's easy to quickly pull together delicious meals.
Many days I make the easiest tomato salads. Large chunks of tomato dressed with shavings of onion, shreds of basil, splashes of balsamic vinegar and a bit of salt and pepper. Nothing tastes more summery.
And eggplant, chopped (with the skin still on), mixed with splashes of olive oil and a shake of some salt and pepper roasted in a 400 degree for about 40ish minutes is a versatile addition to pasta or salads or rice. It pairs as easily with Italian flavors as it does with Asian ones and I'm thinking about trying it in some tacos, too.
I'd love to know how YOU have been celebrating the season these days.
Will you join me in renewing a commitment to savor the moment, in focusing on gratitude as we shift from August to September and begin the transition from one season to the next?
For me, I think it might be a good time to bring out my Joy Lists* again.
I hope your lists are long.