The Summer of More
I think I’ll plant a flowering tree in the yard this year. I’ll place her by the roses, where the sun shines just right from afternoon til dusk. I imagine having something alive and blooming next spring would be nice. And by nice, I mean biting into a ripe strawberry, splitting seeded skin, its flavor bursting on your tongue. By nice, I mean therapy that cracks us wide open, an untangling of hope from the knotted chain of worry. The kind of shaking loose that shows up as first flecks of color in a gray Giver’s world. Magenta and cobalt and violet.
I think I’ll take root this year. Stick my toes down deep into mud, stretch my arms to the sky, and will myself to be a tree.
I might take more naps, let the dogs lay their warm cottony heads on my stomach and try to sync our inhale. I will take my wild and spindly body for slow walks along the lake at night and wait for fireflies to flicker across her silvery surface. I’ll write a chapter, and another still, while summer solstice stretches her sultry shadow long and late over thirsty grass.
I’ll make more bread and bring a loaf to my elderly neighbor, Rose. This will be a ruse, of course, because what I truly want is more chances to learn from her, to hear her stories, to record them in word and color.
I’ll eat more tangerines, peeled slowly, sticky citrine juices curling trails between my fingers and down my elbows. I might put my hand over my lungs and discover a splinter of poems embedded deep in my sternum.
I’ll spend my hours in the sunshine, allowing her rays to do their meticulous work of unhooking all the old dead snags until I feel them leaving my skin one drop of salty sweat at a time. If I get the itch for more saltwater, I might toss some towels in the back and drive until I hit the sea.
I’ll buy myself reading glasses because my body tells me what she needs, and I am learning to care with tenderness. I will spend more time barefoot, toes kissing sun and turning brown with melanin and garden roots. I’ll listen to more music. Music, music everywhere, all the time. In the car with the windows down. In the shower, belting and wild. Outside while I water my tomato plants.
More blankets on the grass and dripping ice cream cones and jumping through sprinklers in my clothes. More dinner parties under the stars, rich conversation and plates licked clean while every melty wick burns all the way down.
Less feigned uncertainty and more This is what I think.
More moments that leave me gripping — my bones, my memories, my god. More real life, the one full of laundry and dentist appointments and grocery lists. I can hear her humming, Be here with us, you gorgeous creature! and this year, I will heed her call.
More cosmic love and celestial ache.
More wildflower seeds.
More honeybees and monarch wings and whooping midnight frogs.
More three-hour phone calls and spotty zooms with those who love us best. Less case-making and more cannonballs into icy pools. More messy buns.
More getting in the water and the frame.
Less justification and more indulgence. More evenings ending in the garden where the day began, thick black soil across fingernails and sunburned cheeks. More self-permission to do less. More slow breathing. Less guilt and more asking for seconds. More hand-holding. More blueberries dunked in frosty sparkling water.
More tuning into the heat of the ones we love – they are here, alive, beating and gushing and dreaming alongside us. What a miracle.
Yes, I’ll plant a tree that blooms flowers like a promise kept every cracking spring and live into my life as if I already belong to it.
FIVE FAVES
Our friends Steph and Mel have both written their own adaptations of Jae Nichelle’s fire poem, and you better believe C and I have our drafts waiting in the wings. What would yours say?
These shorts from Target. I know they’re not fancy, but they are the perfect length and have just the right amount of stretch to be easy when it’s too hot for jeans, but you still want to look cute. Plus, they’re on sale right now!
Let’s keep the Target theme going, shall we? These sandals are my summer obsession — I have them in black, green, and neon orange. They are cheap but sturdy and, most importantly, comfy. Also on sale!
Homemade rustic sourdough bread. My stepmom gave me a sourdough starter when she came to visit this spring, and it’s been one of the most precious and thoughtful gifts—an heirloom. This is my go-to recipe!
Outdoor dinners. Our backyard is a work in progress, but I got a little table and some cafe chairs to sit out under the big oak tree and eat together this year. We gave Steve an old-school charcoal grill for Father's Day, and it’s magic how those simple elements have transformed our evenings. Creating a space to gather doesn’t require much, but I hope the conversations brewing during those times form memories my kids hold for many years.
Breathtaking. Thank you for every word of this.