Happy summer! The season of sun and fun officially started Thursday and I’m here to say I didn’t even realize it. Then, I started seeing all these posts about summer and I realized the season is upon us. Where I live, summer means one thing: heat. Okay, maybe two things: heat and air conditioning. But it can also mean vacations, school’s out, gardening, and swimming. Leave it to my blogger and author girl Gretchen Rubin to present a whole new way of looking at the change of season.
In a recent blog, Rubin brainstormed about ways to make the most of this summer and challenged herself to write a five senses portrait of summer. She writes how exploring our five senses can get us out of our heads and into the world. I loved it and I’m up for the challenge. Are you?
Tied into her New York Times best-selling book, “Life of Five Senses,” which discovers a surprising path to energy, creativity, loves, and maybe even a little bit of luck simply by tuning into your five senses. The challenge asks you to list your five senses and tie each on into a memory of summer. Let’s dive in!
Sight. My immediate summer sight memory takes me to Costa Rica and gazing out on the ocean from our hotel balcony. It’s a happy place and a happy memory.
Hearing. Where I live, summer hearing means cicadas. Yep, those buzzing bugs that once we hear them chirping each evening, we know summer, or at least the heat, has officially arrived.
Smell. Flowers. I think of all the flowers blooming everywhere, especially my knock-out roses that go crazy once the weather warms up. They are so beautiful they could also be in my “sight” category.
Taste. Grilled anything. Summer (and spring for that matter) mean grilling outside for us. This could be anything from burgers to hot dogs to fajitas to BBQ ribs or brisket. Some of these could also qualify as “smells” of summer.
Touch. My skin. Weird, right? But yep, in the summer I tend to touch my skin a whole lot more cuz off went the hoodies and leggings and out came short sleeves and dresses.
Quick diversion here. Rubin also has what’s called the “What’s Your Neglected Sense?” quiz. I took it and discovered my most neglected sense is seeing. Rubin notes that is can be useful to recognize your neglected sense because that’s where you have the greatest opportunity to fin more enjoyment and heighten your mindfulness. Got to gretchenrubin.com to find out more about all of this.
Back to summer…
Last summer was one of endless days of 100 degrees or more, so I’m hoping this summer is a little different in that sense…excuse the pun. For me, summer also means getting up earlier for my morning walk with one of our three dogs, as by 9 a.m. it is way too hot for either of us to be out. Same goes for evening strolls, as it never really cools down enough for their little paws or me for that matter.
Summer came early this year, actually the earliest in two centuries. The summer solstice, which happened on Thursday, marks the longest day of the year north of the Equator, the exact moment when the sun reaches its most northern point in the sky, when the Earth’s north pole is most tilted towards the sun, and is the beginning of summer. The Earth has a solstice every six months, in June and September. After the summer solstice, the days get short and the sun will appear lower and lower in the sky each day until the winter solstice on December. Interestingly enough, the hottest temperatures of the year usually don’t occur until July or August, as it takes time for the sun’s rays to warm our planet. Don’t tell that to people in the northeast right now who are melting in an extreme heat wave!
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Even though the sun gets all the attention during all of this, the moon had its own party with a stunning “Strawberry Moon” reaching its stunning peak on Friday. Did you see it?
It was the sixth full moon of 2024, was named after strawberries that ripen during the summer, and is always the lowest-hanging full moon because it mirrors the sun’s position when the sun is at its highest. It all coincided this year not only with summer solstice, but also with a rare “major lunar standstill” not seen since 2006. This happens when the tilts of the moon and Earth are at their maximum and when the moon rises and sets at the furthest points on its range on the horizon.
Whew! That’s a lot of astronomy! Truth be told this writer loves astronomy as being a word person, my math and science skills have always been lacking. In college, when I had to take a science, I took astronomy! I loved it!
But I digress. Back to our summer five senses portrait. It’s all for fun but maybe you’ll learn something useful out of it. Maybe you’ll acknowledge smells and sounds that make you reminisce about something enjoyable. Maybe a taste will not only make your tastebuds happy but your lips smile. Give it a shot. You might just discover what you see hung the moon in some fantastic way.
Have fun and happy summer!
Beyond Words 