Summer is… (and Yours?)

Posted on by Live & Learn

In my newsletter two weeks ago, I confessed my dislike of summer and invited you to send me emails defending the season. Hundreds of you responded, so what follows is a tiny and somewhat random sampling of your terrific contributions, for which I thank you.

Sam Sifton, in the Cooking newsletter, described the compression of time as we age: “Back-to-school advertising has started to show up in my feeds, and it’s depressing. Summers lasted forever when I was a child. Now they hurtle past, express trains bound for shorter days and hard shoes.”

Summer’s meaning and virtues hinge on place, age and more. “Childhood summer is the wilds of the neighborhood but grown-up summer is a hot car,” wrote Scott Williams of Salt Lake City. “Alpine summer is the smell of pine sap but downtown summer is the smell of asphalt. Summer on vacation is a novel but summer at home is a repair manual.”

Summer, many of you noted, is about certain fruits at their ripest, certain flavors at their peak, certain tastes that hide from us or are muted during the other parts of the year. “Only summer gives us blackberries for jelly and cobblers,” wrote Cheryl Roddy of Ooltewah, Tenn. “Only in summer can blueberries and peaches be turned into jams and frozen for winter pies. Only in summer do tomatoes taste like tomatoes and okra and beans grow in my garden, and butter-slathered, fresh-boiled corn makes me shout ‘Hallelujah!

Summer warms water to a point where we can comfortably dip and dive in. “To swim vigorously then laze about in outdoor pools, rivers and mountain lakes is nirvana,” wrote Mary Bernsen of Fearrington Village, N.C. “To drift and float on the ocean as it rises and falls before breaking on shore is to commune with earth’s greatest resource.”

Summer has its own fragrances: freshly cut lawns, burgers and hot dogs on the grill, the salt in seaside air, the tropical top notes of tanning lotions and oils.

Summer is extra light, hours of it, stretching the day beyond its rightful limits, creating the feeling that time itself is being cheated, transcended.

And then, when darkness finally falls, summer is a show from nature unlike any other. “Only during the hazy nights of summer,” Sarah Brodie of Staunton, Va., observed, “can you delight in the winking on and off of a field of fireflies, flashing like a mob of tiny paparazzi.”

Summer is carnal candor. It “unveils the human body, revealing all its diversity and individuality,” wrote Joe Perez of Queens “Hard, trim bodies, sensual curves and, yes, flabby thighs and bulbous jelly bellies — all exposed in the harsh light/heat of summer.”

And with its crowd-gathering rituals, its aura of permission and that extra light, summer brings people out and together — for baseball games and concerts, for barbecues and fireworks, for ice cream from a passing, jingling truck.

As Jamie Greenfield of Manhattan wrote: “Summer coaxes the introvert into the greater fold of humanity.”

— Frank Bruni, from “A Personal Summery Note” (NY Times, July 27, 2023)

55 thoughts on “Summer is… (and Yours?)”

  1. I love summer and always have. For me right now, summer is reading by the pool, visiting with neighbours on my terrace and visits from the ice cream truck!

  2. And I just wondered: Why didn’t I see that? Another post I missed?
    Then I got it….
    For me, SUMMER is being able to buy fruit and veggies with hardly any travel mileage, sitting outside till way too late in the evenings, but mostly having every meal on our patio. In the summer months, our rental flat has an additional room, and we live basically outside.
    Thank you for these articles. As you know, I cannot access any of the featured articles from the NYT….. I once managed to get ‘admitted’ to Wordle, which they bought, but that was it!

  3. All great, until this Jamie Greenfield of Manhattan. Which introvert did he spot in the greater fold of humanity?

    Thank you for sharing.

    Twice in August, I was pregnant. And both times it was the 9th month. All pregnancies were easy, smooth sailing for me. But the August heat and being very pregnant are still unforgettable.
    I LOVE summer, but I need all the seasons.

      1. Ain’t that the truth. I was rather pregnant for my last one (born October) and I remember August was particularly memorable. Third baby means I was rather on the round side!

  4. Awesome reasons to love summer – though we’re under a heat dome that is taking summertime warmth to a whole new level. And as you know, I think Frank Bruni rocks.

      1. Favorite summertime memory? Horseback riding with my dad (and yes, even living in the city, such activity was still possible).

  6. I’m done with (our) summers — heat, humidity, rainrainrain, ants, mosquitoes! Favorite childhood summer memories, tho: Ice cream rides after a hot day past dusky lawns’ tiger lilies and then a million fireflies in all the darks — second only to an entire day of swimming at a lake especially. And your faves, DK?

    1. Orange Popsicles. Coke (not Diet) in glass bottles. Outdoor Drive-In Movies. Fishing with Cousins, laying on rocks in shade when fish aren’t biting. Reading paperbacks in the cool basement on hot midafternoon August days.

  7. We are preferring the winter. In summer the tourists and the mosquitoes are around, nowadays it tends to be too hot and dry. In winter the landscape looks clean and graphic. And we like the cold and especially snow. Snow is so much fun and ice as well.
    Keep well
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      1. When it’s not gross and humid, it’s wonderful to sit on a terrasse (yes, spelt that way on purpose as that is how we say it – emphasis on the second syllable) in the shade, cool drink in hand and people-watch. Or letting my kid out and getting an orange popsicle. Sitting outside until we need a candle (and bug-repellant) and just chatting with a friend/family. That feeling of no hurry or purpose that seems all the more so in the summer. Wasn’t quite so when I worked at the Golf Club, though!

        1. 1) Thank you for sharing. What is it about those Orange Popsicles? 2) And seriously Dale, WTH is “Terrasse”? That’s like a made up word. I would be using it out in public.

          1. 1) I think they are psychologically more refreshing…
            2) Terrace is just so blah. Terrasse, gives it panache! You should use it. Got my American to start using it 😉 That and a few other Québécois expressions. 😀

  9. Thank you Frank Bruni for stimulating so many memories…and you, David for all of this!. As a child I loved all of this–playing outdoors (mostly boys available), going to the beach, to lakes, making forts in the woods, making art, planting gardens, and babysitting (from aged 9!). Later, so many meals eaten outside under the grape arbor (protects us from rain), many fireflies even let them into my room at night, always the water–making sure each of my children learned to swim well at our Commuity Park, many trips to the Jersey Shore. Loved these memories because I’m a grouch now–or Goldilocks: too hot, too cold, too buggy.

  10. Hi there!! Good day …. there’s a new thing on your blog!! When I try to reblog it says now: “open the reblog editor” … don’t know what’s uup!! … 🙁

      3. I tried to reblog another friend’s post … got the same thing. Can’t reblog as usual … may be a new WP feature …. <>

          2. Paul’s “off the cuff“ rules of software (think Murphy’s Law):

            – No software is reliable unless it has been running extremely well with absolutely no upgrades for a year. (A decade is better. This is why NASA used ANCIENT software and computers during the Apollo space program. And even then they had multiple computers (maybe 5?) running the same programs and comparing answers to make sure they matched. (Occasionally not all did match, but I believe this was rare.) I’m flying by the seat of my pants here without reviewing any history.

            2 Fundamental rules of computers:
            “All software eventually works”
            “All hardware eventually fails”

            We can’t get WordPress to work and you want me to trust a self driving car?? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL! (Not for me anyway).

            AI (artificial intelligence?)… Are you kidding me?? Much of the time we don’t even have human intelligence! At the current time, I think the phrase “artificial intelligence“ should be completely removed from the “vocabulary involving computers“.

            The following is from an interesting article, which I actually did read recently: The biggest companies (think Fortune 500)… Like banks
            (Goldman and Sachs for example), insurance companies, the stock market…etc. THESE COMPANIES REQUIRE INCREDIBLY RELIABLE, COMPUTER HARDWARE and SOFTWARE. They cannot possibly afford to have problems on a weekly basis. How did they do this? They continue to rely on IBM mainframes (which I worked with in the 80s). These computers run with no errors something like 99.6% of the time. Why? Because they are running software which began development in the 1960s. Of course this software has been upgraded (and tested literally to death) many many times, but when you dig down deep under the covers, there is still 1960s code still being used to guarantee reliability.

            I could go on and on… but I’m sure you get the idea: recently developed software is basically by definition going to have glitches on a regular basis.

            I have tortured you long enough!

  11. It must be the misty west coast-like drizzle soaking the earth here at the eastern foot of the Canadian Rockies, the soft dewy air carressing my skin on this no-at-all warm like summer day. In its cool breath my mind turns, like autumn’s chills soon to come, to thoughts of what was lost beneath summer’s heating up.
    Thoughts of summer days burned deep into my cellular memories scuttle away from the starkness of current reality where 1,000 wildfires rage across the country. Of flash floods dragging lives into their undertow. Of children crying for lost pets and homes drowning beneath Mother Nature’s twistied winds and scorching heat.
    Once upon a time, summer was full of carefree thoughts and endless days spent lazing between pool and lounge chair. Melting ice cream dripping down the sides of a sugar cone onto hot, but not too hot concrete. Of sitting in the car while the gods bowled in the skies above, because somewhere in my child’s mind, I beleived the car was the safest place to be when lightning strikes.
    I don’t remember lightning igniting forests across the land. I don’t remember broadcasters droning on about warming seas and melting permafrast or storms that ignited forests,
    In these modern these climes lightening strikes carry fear-laden dread of boreal forests disappearing beneath their wrath and news feeds roll on and on with stories like the one about an elderly woman in Phoenix tipping over in her wheel chair onto too hot concrete that seared her skin to the third degree.
    I yearn for those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Those indolent times where the northern hemisphere seemed to slip with ease into slow gear with Solstice’s arrival. Under that Solstice moon gravity cradled me in comforting thoughts of Planet Earth held steadfast in its orbit around the sun burning away lingering memories of winter’s harsh winds blasting.
    _____________________________
    Love Bruni’s and all the others’ ruminations DK… and this is where they lead me so my fingertips followed. (sorry)

  14. Joys of summer (back in the 1970s):
    First, far less heat, and humidity!

    – My mother dragging me kicking and screaming to try a tennis lesson. At the end of the lesson, I wanted to go buy a tennis racket! LOL. Tennis was my love from age 10 to about 17 (even in brutal heat, because I was so obsessed), but then “adult life“ got in the way. I actually may try again, but I have serious doubts that my body can take it.
    – same story as tennis, but with throwing a frisbee! Used to stay out and play frisbee until I couldn’t see the frisbee anymore because of darkness. I actually am starting to throw frisbees again!
    – swimming at my grandparents camp (built in the 1920s and now owned by my brother). I still live only 8 miles from the camp, but tragically the water is too polluted for my taste 🙁
    – and like many of you… The magic of the ice cream truck… And fire flies!

    – SO much more heat and humidity 50 years later… Heartbreaking… Glad I wasn’t born any later.

  15. Somehow missed this post yesterday (must have been on the same side road as Kiki), but….Summer for me is memories of sitting amongst the tomato plants in my grandparents’ garden, picking rosy red orbs off the vine, their skin warmed by the sun, and eating them like apples. It’s watching field corn rustling in the breeze, row upon row, as far as the eye can see. It’s memories of laying in the porch swing, watching fireflies dance across the lawn. It’s a pile of books, amassed over weeks in delicious anticipation of hours of uninterrupted reading time. It’s a delicious freedom and sense of languor that doesn’t exist at any other time of year.

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