All Things Summer
My personal summer must-do’s for the city and the lake, also what I’m wearing, reading, eating, drinking & listening to…
Today is, officially, the first day of summer break for our kids--William’s last day of seventh grade was yesterday, and Henry’s last day of junior year was last week, so here we are: an eighth grader and a senior, and official summertime for our family—hurrah!
It’s been HOT in New York for most of the last week, and city hot is definitely different than vacation hot. It’s hot-garbage-smell, also hot-dog-pee-smell, the blast of hot air that hits you when the subway doors open, a lot of sticky, sweaty bodies around you all the time. I like hot, but over 90 in New York is even too hot for me, and we’ve spent most of the last week there.
Last night, though, a summer storm full of lighting came a little bit out of nowhere, and this morning it’s absolutely gorgeous—that freshly-washed bright sky, a cool breeze, impossibly green leaves. My neighbors joke that when the weather’s nice, I’m as predictable a fixture in the courtyard as the Adirondack chairs, and they’re not wrong—being outside brings me so much joy. I can’t remember, really, if I’ve always been like this, but I think maybe it’s a getting older thing? Or maybe it’s a small apartment thing? Who knows?
Our summer, generally speaking, is divided between the city: hot, busy, exciting--and the lake: windy, quiet, grounding. We feel immensely grateful to get to have both kinds of experiences, and we soak up both of them so happily.
It’s a little bit different every year, depending on work and kid stuff and family plans, but in broad strokes this summer we’ll be in the city for most of July, and then at the lake for a while in August—and we’ve figured out that this is a pretty good way to do it, especially for the kids. As much as I’d like to have the car packed and running the second school’s out, if we stay in the city for a while in July, by the end of the month they start to get a little bored here…just in time for the lake! Perfect!
I’m not calling either of these lists full summer bucket lists or anything, but I have kept a little running list of what I want to experience this summer—a handful of “it’s not really summer until we…” kinds of things, ways to soak up the best of what the city and the lake have to offer…
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