Summer is the season I long for during the rest of the year. When I'm feeling spread thin and want the pace to lessen, I long for the break from school, the lighter schedule, and the quieter work pace that summer brings.
But, I'm not very good at summering.
Summer arrives, and I think I am ready. I am eager for summer to be the answer to all my weary woes. I'm all in on summer, and the first few days are fine, novel really. But then, a couple of weeks in, I feel uncomfortable. Edgy. Unable to shake the feeling that I don't know how to summer well.
Am I the only one who is bad at summering?
The truth is, I don't have trouble resting. I know how to recharge on a daily and weekly basis. But hand me an entire season of rest, and I am out of my depths. Turns out, I am not good at embracing seasons of ease.
This week, as I kicked off the Summer Cookbook Club and cooked through two new recipes, I was reminded that my favorite way to learn something new is to simply do the thing I don't know how to do. Then do it again. And again. And then, little by little, it begins to feel less awkward and more familiar, and the next thing I know, I have become good at the thing that used to stump me.
I have not summered very often in the past twenty or so years. Small children and new businesses do not respect seasonality. In the same way I would never expect to be good at making pie crust or roasting a chicken the first time I try it, maybe the same is true for learning to summer well.
After rolling out a lot of pie dough and roasting a lot of chickens, you know what I have become good at? Pie dough and chicken. Maybe in order to become better at summering, I need to jump in and choose to summer, even if it feels strange and unfamiliar. I want to be good at summering.
And so, I am going to summer with my whole heart this season, knowing I will get it wrong at first, but trusting that with time I will become good at relaxing and letting go of the need for constant motion and embracing the gift that a restful season brings.
I will relax my shoulders, breathe deeply, and remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth. Over and over and over again. I will be gentle and slow with myself, fumbling through the new routine of having less on my plate, grateful for the time to recharge, even if it feels odd. Again and again and again. I will repeat a phrase in my head (Let it be easy. Let it be easy. Let it be easy.), and little by little it will become easier to take it easy.
I will learn to summer by summering.
Learning by doing is the best way to acquire a new skill, and in the same way I apply this idea to cooking or flower arranging, I am also learning to apply it to areas of my life that need a bit of attention. I hope you are learning by doing in whatever areas of your life feel odd or uncomfortably new. Keep going. You're doing great.
