For the Love of Summer

Summer has always been my favorite season.

I have wondered if that's because my birthday falls in the middle of it, but I think I loved summer long before I understood birthdays. There was something about those months that felt different from the rest of the year. The days seemed longer, dinner happened later, and no one appeared to be in quite the same hurry.

As a little girl, I would disappear outside for hours. Bare feet. Warm pavement. The sound of cicadas in the trees. The sky stayed light so long that bedtime always seemed to arrive before I was ready for it.

Looking back, I realize I wasn't doing anything remarkable.

I was simply paying attention.

Summer was also when we traveled.

Sometimes it was a proper vacation. Sometimes it was only a weekend away. It never mattered how far we went. Checking into a hotel, swimming in a different pool, eating breakfast somewhere unfamiliar, all of it made the world feel a little larger than it had the week before.

My mother loved that feeling.

She encouraged curiosity in quiet ways. We didn't travel to escape our lives. We traveled because there was always something worth seeing just beyond the horizon. I think that's where my love of new places began.

Even now, I still feel it whenever I pack a suitcase.

Life moves differently as we get older.

The calendar fills itself. Responsibilities multiply. Entire weeks disappear before I've had a chance to notice them. It's easy to become efficient. It's much harder to remain available to an ordinary afternoon.

Last winter, a friend invited me to try forest bathing.

We spent several hours walking through the woods at a pace that felt almost unfamiliar. No destination. No fitness tracker. No reason to hurry. We stopped often, noticing things I normally would have walked straight past.

At one point, our guide mentioned that the human eye can distinguish more shades of green than any other color.

I found myself looking more carefully after that.

I still do.

Perhaps that's what I love most about summer.

It reminds me to notice.

The first peaches at the market. The warmth that lingers after sunset. The sound of children playing somewhere down the street. A long dinner that slowly turns into evening because no one is watching the clock.

None of those moments ask very much of us.

They simply ask us to be there.

Every summer, I find myself returning to that slower rhythm. Not because life becomes less busy, but because the season reminds me that not every hour needs to be filled.

Some days are enough exactly as they are.

I think that's what I've loved about summer all along.