By Sarah May Clarkson
Just a few weeks ago it was June 21st, the summer solstice. Solstice is a celestial term that, I’m sure you know, signifies the point in the middle of the year when the number of daylight hours is the highest (in Pocatello, we had 15 hours and 20 minutes of it). The sun rose on the solstice at 5:51 am and set at 9:12 pm. At this time of year it feels to me like there is still light until about 9:45 in the evening. I appreciate these long and light-filled days. Not to be a downer, but I do feel the loss of sunlight in the teeth of the Winter.
But the solstice is just one signifier of summer. A couple of days ago, I finished an essay called “Summer Solstice” by Nina MacLaughlin – very good. MacLaughlin writes about the things that mark summer – sights, sounds, experiences, feelings – and the season: “The truth is this: It starts getting darker from here. Each season is pregnant with the other” (p. 47).
Though I can’t do it as eloquently as Nina MacLaughlin, I have been making notes about what signals summer to me.
First, school is out! Our academic calendars in the U.S. were devised when our economy was largely agricultural. Bodies young and old were needed in the fields and out on the land to maximize, and prepare for, the harvest. In 2025, students, teachers, families, and communities can step back from the break-neck and hair-trigger schedules of the school year, take a breath, read at leisure (yes, people, read, read, and read some more), and gather new energy for the cycle to begin again. And bear in mind that many corporations, non-profits, and other organizations operate on fiscal years that run July 1 to June 30. Why that is, I couldn’t tell you, but summer means budget meetings, budget goals, and, often, budget adjustments.
Summer is hot! But in the steppe desert, it is hot and dry. I grew up in New England where it is hot and humid – not a winning combination. When it’s hot and humid, I feel slow and stupid, so I don’t miss humidity a bit. I have acclimated myself to the summer heat here. There is a summer routine we follow because there is no central air in the house of Clarkson: open and close windows, use fans, move S L O W L Y after a certain point of the day. My late, and vastly wise, father once said that you can escape the cold, but you can’t escape the heat. There was no central air in the house of my childhood either.
I can fully know it’s summer when the freckles sprout on my forearms and the favored head gear is a baseball cap rather than a beanie pulled low over my ears. At the end of a summer’s day, the twilight is a quite extraordinary combination of blue and purple; it is magical, hard to describe. The gathering twilight of a long summer’s day is the best time to sit out back in the Adirondack chair and read. And maybe snooze.
There are some recipes made only during summer: sesame noodles, Sally Lanzi’s corn salad, anything on the grille. Even though the car has air conditioning, I love to drive with the windows down, with some music on real loud, my elbow sticking out. That is Summer.
Summer means getting in the dirt: plant those tomatoes, geraniums on the porch. Planting things that take root and thrive and some things that fail. Hard. During summer, the stars seem brighter (and more abundant?), the birds on my hikes sing all the way up and all the way down (the sweetest song), and the aspens in the breeze provide sights and sounds that are a wonder of nature.
I have written before about my clothesline and summer is the time when the dryer (our ancient, but much beloved, dryer) gets a sabbatical and there are clothes on the line all the time. Not just the sheets and shirts, but the fleece jackets that need a good wash, winter hats and gloves, the occasional curtain and bath rug. All of it. There is something very zen about hanging clothes on the line.
Mary Oliver was a poet of great renown who deeply observed, and felt, the natural world. she gave me (us) the following words that I have used in writing this column and which are, to me, words to live by. From Oliver’s “Sometimes,” stanza 4: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
The linden trees are everywhere in the Pocatello area and the air is sweet with the scent of their flowers in early summer. We travelled to India twice in our younger days and the smell of the linden trees reminds me of the jasmine there. Our neighbor has a sour cherry tree that is right on the street. It blooms resplendently in the spring and we are rewarded with cherries in late June and early July. When you look up through the leaves, you see Christmas colors: the bright green of the leaves and the deep red of the cherries. That tree is an urban wonder. Likewise, the Russian sage has come into flower. When you run your fingers along a stalk, you smell its sweet and healing aroma. You can do the same with lavender; both are plants exquisite in sight and smell. In the summer you can swim outside in lakes, streams, or ocean – such a gift, so relaxing and refreshing. Later in the summer is one of my favorite sounds: crickets. Back east, summer begins with fireflies and when their season passed, the cricket season began. To fall asleep to a symphony of crickets is like a good drug. The clouds in summer can be very dramatic and stunning. Tonight they were especially so, like something out of the art by Thomas Moran, a painter of the West. So look up once in a while and you will be rewarded.
And, of course, summer means fireworks. When I let the dog out to do his business that night, there was still the sounds of explosions at 2 am.
To go back to Nina MacLaughlin, I’ll close with this: “Summer is made of the memory of summer” (p. 48). Now, go forth and make summer memories.
