Dreaming of a slower, gentler summer

As a child, I remember knowing that summer vacation would last forever. When the school year ended, summer break stretched out ahead of you in this vast time of freedom. The days would be long and full and unscheduled.

There would be ice cream and spontaneous baseball games and bicycle riding and sprinklers to keep you cool. Somewhere, far off in the future, you knew there would be another school year. But school always seemed like a distant dream, and it never interfered with the pure, marvelous fun of summer.

This year, I’m trying to keep my expectations for the summer low, but I also do have hopes for this season. I want everyone in our household to relax and get some distance from pandemic-ness. I want to erase academic learning from our house. I want to reclaim our home as a place of peace, positive time together, and relaxation—a place where children are only using screens for fun, and where parents don’t feel they are owned by their screens. I want this to be a summer with a little bit of travel—just a few road trips.

This doesn’t need to be the best summer ever. It just needs to be a summery summer—a slower, gentler time to reconnect with people we love and with one another. Let’s make this a summer where we let go of some of the anxiety and uncertainty we’ve been carrying and just rest.

I am optimistic and grateful to be here, with the school year behind us, and with some time off in the near future.

The other day when I dropped off a Father’s Day gift for my father, I included in it a box of mini ice cream cones I had spotted at the store. I thought he would enjoy filling them with tiny scoops of ice cream for my little nieces and nephews who are often visiting.

I guessed right. He and my mother both raved about the cones that night on the phone. It turned out they were just the right size for the children, who only want a bite or two of ice cream and had been throwing away partly-eaten, normal-sized cones.

That’s really all I want out of this summer. I want the simplest of pleasures. A bite or two of ice cream. Ordinary summer fun. Time to read a book in the shade. An afternoon watching my children talk and play together. A moment of peace that isn’t just another drive to the grocery store.

“Just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him,” said St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. “Then you will be able to rest in Him—really rest—and start the next day as a new life.”

May this summer be a restful time of renewal, memory-making, and ice cream.

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