Summer Joy

“Summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind.” --Seals and Crofts

I don’t know about you, but at the start of September I always marvel at how fast the summer has flown by. Never quite ready to let it all go (after all, living in Vermont, my next ocean swim feels too far in the future to contemplate), I find myself reflecting on the joys of this short but wonderful season.

I tend to remember the big joys first (that amazing day of perfect sailing from Monhegan Island to Friendship, Maine in late June, for instance), and I have been lucky enough to experience several of these this summer. However, in March and April, when the winter drags on, seemingly without end in Northern New England, it’s the small joys of summer that typically come to mind.

In late winter, I begin to daydream about drinking my morning coffee on my screened porch (or on a deck overlooking the coast of Maine or down the shore in New Jersey), riding my bike on the West River Trail, kayaking alone on Sunset Lake  with just a pair of loons for company, a swim in Kilburn Pond on a perfectly sunny day, hanging laundry on my outdoor line, grilling and eating dinner on my porch. Writing on the porch, reading on the porch, lunch on my porch with my friend Adrienne (except for when we have lunch on her porch), a late afternoon gin and tonic on the porch. In other words, all of life is conducted on the porch. (Needless to say, I am typing this post on the porch.)

I won’t forget the big joys of my summer. Photographs help with those remembrances. Here is photo evidence of the evening I spent with two friends from college, both of whom I met fifty years ago and neither of whom I had seen in nearly that many years. Just look at how happy we are.

But, while the big joys set a summer apart from other summers, it’s the small joys I can count on re-experiencing when summer rolls around again. It’s the small joys of a season that I most look forward to.

What joys from your summer are you holding in your heart as fall and winter approach?