The sun is hot. The sun is yellow. The yellow sun is over the house.
“It is hot out here in the sun.”
“It is not hot here under the house.”
–Go Dog Go, by PD Eastman (It was my favorite book, and now it is V’s as well.)
I love summer. It’s my favorite season, despite living in a really hot place where we get triple digits in July and August.
Summer feels slow, like time to relax. Time to spend nights up late talking to friends. Time to make things like corn on the cob, fruit skewers, troughs of potato salad (only with avocado oil mayo, obviously). Time to forget dipping a toe in and instead just to dive seamlessly into the water. Time to watch your kid experience her first ocean waves.
I love the clear brightness of summer. Nothing hanging in the air — not here at least, where humidity is rarer than earthquakes. Everything looks thinly crystallized and awake, dazzling. Not a single cloud in a whole expanse of sky.
This year, V has helped me remember the small pleasures of summer. Early trips to the park before the slides and swings burn bare legs. Filling up a plastic water table with the hose and bringing her a bucket of ice to melt and toss and chew on. Making sidewalk murals (mostly she just says “Draw Elmo, Draw Mickey”) with chalk that’s been bleached from laying in too much direct sun.
Tomorrow is September 1st. I know from experience that it’ll be warm here until October. But already a little chill has slipped into the nights, and mornings are cool and foggy. I feel like summer only started, and now it’s slipped on by.
Hopefully there’s time for one more trip to the beach before fall’s bony fingers creep in.
small life, slow life 