The summertime imagery in my brain is the likes of salt marshes, the greenest grass, bike rides down oak avenues, beach towels, brilliant blue swimming pools, and hammocks. Oh! And screen porches. I imagine for people in the mountains it's bike rides on dirt roads, dips in chilly streams, climbing trees, and wooded explorations in dense, earthy scented labyrinths. For city folks I reckon it's hot cement.
As a squirt, summer was so much longer than it is in real life, and it was full of potential. Just about everyday was open to you. In those first 16ish years, I learned summer to be a time of leisure, freedom, and possibility. I remember the first few summers where I had jobs that didn't disappear just because the weather went nice, and I had to reckon with the adult reality that summer is no different than any other time of the year, except that the weather goes nice and you've got the lingering feeling that you're being shafted somehow.
This past summer, this summer of 2024, will go down as my least summery summer, if not also the most fast-paced, adulty, data-driven summer. I went from grad school to a job that was too big for me to a meltdown state and then back to calm nothingness again just in time for Fall. A true whirlwind - though also highly educational.
So, in-between the left-brained mayhem, there were these colorful moments.
Just the best team of people I've ever gotten to work with.
Gregory Alan Isakov and Ray LaMontagne's concert... in the grass... with my favorite food truck present.
I was beside myself.
