summer #55

The solstice next week will mark the start of my 55^th summer.  May was wet and cool here, putting farmers and home gardeners behind schedule.  A week ago, it finally warmed up.  My feet have been released from socks.  My eight-month chill is over.

I’ve been back in Nova Scotia two years now and, when considering if I miss the PNW, my mental record will often skip to a time rather than a place—a groove of happy memories: summer 2009.

At that point, I’d been in Seattle for three years.  My original plan had been to work there only 2-3 years and so I emailed my family looking for feedback on whether it was time to move home.  The economy was still in the recession.  They agreed it would be tough to find a tech job back here and encouraged me to stay longer.  They knew my life was finally going in the right direction.  I sounded happier than I had in years.  Maybe ever.  I decided to start a new role with a new team.  I had met new friends.  I was having fun every weekend hiking or camping.  Summer #45 was an exciting, hopeful time for me.  My two cats were young and healthy.  I lived in a care-free apartment.  And there was still time left with Mom.  That summer doesn’t seem long ago, but being a 44-year old does.

Ten summers before that, I was also having a lot of fun but drinking heavily.  As I wrote about in my first post, a pivotal moment came in late summer when, hungover in a tent, I made the decision to go back to school.  Summer #25, I’d already been married for two years.  I enjoyed socializing on the weekends but I spent my weekdays working unhappily at a clerical job and feeling sorry that my life’s work wasn’t obvious or easy for me.  On my lunch hour, I would escape into the humidity of downtown Halifax and sit in a park scribbling in a notebook.

Minus ten summers from that, I was a 14-year old kid reading a gothic novel at night while visiting my grandmother, being scared silly as June bugs hit the bedroom window.  That memory came back earlier this week outside the farmhouse when I looked up to see a June bug hit the same window 40 years later.

At age 14, the length of a two-month vacation from school felt like a joyous eternity.  Today, my 55^th summer feels like a precious opportunity.  After a long productive stretch that has me feeling UP—painting, yardwork, gardening—I remembered to also have fun.  Claire and I, friends since eighth grade, took a sunny drive with verdant views and had lunch at a fabulous out-of-the-way restaurant.  We carpe diem’ed.  Summer has 13.5 weeks.  14 weekends.  94 days.  The calendar’s filling up.  I don’t plan to take a minute of it for granted.

References and related links:

• The photo is from my second summer.
• PNW: the Pacific Northwest.
• summer at last (post #94)
• why back is the new forward (post #1)