It’s summertime again and again I have that feeling.

We all know the feeling, even if we’re not wholly conscious of it. It’s a feeling fed by the senses; by the peaty smell freshly mowed (baseball field) grass. By the sound of our swimsuit pilling, as we peel ourselves off the hot poolside cement. It’s the way we welcome the drip of overripe fruit on our tank tops, and a good caking of dirt on the bottom of our flip flopped feet. By the way we crane our necks following the fleeting smell of baby sunblock from a passing stroller. And dunk our hands deep into the icy cooler to fish out a longneck.

It’s a heady combination of sounds and sights and smells that make up summer. And all of these circle back to one sensation – nostalgia.

 

When I was younger I re-read the same book over and over again – nearly every summer. The plot revolved around two sisters and how they spent one very pivotal vacation. I loved it because the author took great pains to accurately distill the sounds of those three months perfectly – the “thwack” of flip flops as you run full tilt down the block to your friend’s house (giddy because you knew their parents weren’t home). She was bang on when it came to the subtle sensorial cues that remind us what it feels like to be young, full of life and  free from all jackets (and responsibilities).

Summer is just that potent, that even as adults faced with 60 plus hour work weeks, and a laundry list of unsexy chores, we still find ourselves pausing to notice and remember. And it’s for this very reason that I’m sitting down and putting pen to paper, or in this case fingers to keys, because I feel an itch and because I had a baby.

They are undoubtedly linked – having a child has given invoked the desire to simultaneously freeze time and also travel back in it. You see the strangest thing has happened after my son was born, and no it’s not that I’m actually able to shower and apply mascara (or write this blog for that matter) it’s something even wilder. Similar to an itch, I’ve been feeling this pull. The pull is back toward my childhood – to the sights and sounds and feelings that long buried memories evoke. Much like the sense of summer, these memories aren’t big or notable, in fact they’re often so subtle you could  easily lose them all together. And yet something about my child had caused these little gems to bubble back to the surface – and me to do my due diligence and unpack or unravel their meaning.

Maybe it’s the nostalgia or a deep seeded desire for outreach, but I’m looking to dig in and explore the “bubbling” while the days are long, the breeze is aromatic and the colors are over saturated. Mainly I just want a spot to share – like my own little front stoop to chill on and run through all the random wonderings bouncing around in my brain. And also to be honest. I feel like conversations have been reduced to recounts of the weekly reality shows instead of open dialogue about life.

So as I kick off summer and this new blog I want to do it without expectation. I have an itch to share and I want to do so freely. That said, I promise to be honest. I promise to take it off roading a bit and to indulge in the weird and wild sometimes. I do not promise good grammar or politically correct commentary – we have too much anyway. I do promise swearing like a sailor, run on sentences, and running metaphors.

So feel free to follow along as I begin to untangle this summer and all the magic this age and stage has to offer.

 

Gratefully,

LG