Does anyone else miss the carefree days of summer? You know, sitting on the beach next to the shore listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 on your radio, reading the latest Nancy Drew mystery in a hammock, or biking around the neighborhood with your friends. Ahhh, I miss the innocence of summers past.
A Lesson For Summer
I attended a virtual workshop in June hosted by life coach Dr. Edie Wadsworth. The RISE workshop was an encouraging reminder to commit to living life on purpose in your midlife and beyond. I know. I’m past midlife unless I live to be 128, but I still gleaned some good information from the workshop. One of those things was another podcast to follow.
Dr. Edie, as she refers to herself, hosts a podcast called House of Joy. She’s colorful, quirky, and fun. In the first episode I listened to, she and her daughter were discussing summer plans. The evening before, when they had something they “should” do, they ended up taking a beautiful sunset cruise on their boat. They talked about how refreshing it was and how it rejuvenated them. My favorite takeaway from that episode was to find something fun to do each day. Savor summer. Don’t let life pass you by.
My Mom And Summer
I got to thinking about my mom, as I often do, especially this time of year. (It was two years ago, on July 30, that she passed away.)
My mom was the queen of making the most of the summer. She worked full time when we were growing up, but we always had fun. Looking back, I admire her so much for that. I imagine she would have liked nothing more than to just relax when she was off work, but she always had something planned for us to do.
If we were at the beach, we weren’t just lounging around the pool or splashing in the gulf. We made sand candles and crafted critters from seashells and tiny Australian pine cones. We walked a mile to dig for clams and then came home and made clam chowder. In the evenings, we took our flashlights and nets and caught blue crabs in the shallow surf. Her good friend, Mary, had a pot of boiling water waiting for our catch. Afterward, we would enjoy a late-night snack of crab. We even went to a children’s play in nearby Sarasota.
One summer, when my dad was working at a bakery in a town about 45 minutes away, she moved the family to a mobile home on a pristine lake. My dad bought a small boat, and we all learned how to water ski, even my three-year-old brother. We also fished and took boat rides around the enormous lake.
There was a natural phenomenon caused by phosphorus, 20 minutes from that lake house (I think every state has something similar). One evening after dark, my mom loaded us and the neighbor kids into the back of the family station wagon to check it out. We drove to the middle of nowhere and parked the car at the intersection of two dirt roads. If you waited long enough, you would see a glowing light coming down the road, supposedly a headless man carrying a lantern, looking for his head. Of course, we insisted we saw it and started screaming. It’s so funny to think about it now. I would never drive a station wagon full of kids out to the middle of nowhere.
Mom even made work fun. She was a nursing instructor at a local community college. One summer, when I was eleven or twelve years old, she took me to work with her. The instructors were preparing for the fall semester, so they enlisted me to help put the handouts together. I got to collate the papers and staple them together. When I finished a task, I got fifty cents to go to the vending machines in the student center. I felt very important.
Fun For Everyone
The remarkable thing is that she didn’t do these things just for her two children. No. If there was something fun to do, it would be us and all our cousins, or us and the neighborhood kids. She included everyone.
During the summer, Mom and a couple of other parents would often drive two and a half hours to Ichetucknee Springs in a caravan to float down the icy river in inner tubes. Sometimes they would take a group of kids to nearby Walt Disney World. If we weren’t going somewhere, it might just be a big softball game in the empty lot at the end of the street.
I have one brother and five first cousins (there used to be six, but my cousin Cheryl died when I was in college). We grew up basically as siblings in the same neighborhood. Every summer, my grandfather sent us on a trip somewhere fun and educational. We went to Washington, DC, California, the Grand Canyon, the New England States, and on a Caribbean cruise. We also spent a few weeks each summer preparing our epic skit for our annual family reunion. The year we did a square dance in matching outfits was my favorite.
Lessons Learned
As I reflect, I realize my mom left me a great example. She enjoyed life. She packed a lot into her eighty-six years.
It is tempting to get bogged down with the things in life; good, bad or indifferent. Technology is great, but you can spend hours in front of a screen and miss the surrounding beauty. Too much news can make you feel the world is falling apart. You can let it drag you down, or you can keep your eyes on God and be a shining light in a dark world.
I took the advice I learned in the workshop I attended earlier. I tried to do something that brought me joy each day this summer, all the while keeping an attitude of prayer for our world and checking my emails. I didn’t want the days of my summer to slip by. I don’t want the days of my life to slip by.
How about you? Do you miss the carefree summer days of youth? Do you let the days slip by? What actions do you take to discover joy in each day you have? I’d love to hear.
Kim Wilbanks 