Summer Solstice is a week away and I already feel like summer is slipping away. As a child, the school calendar created this lovely liminal space between academic years. A magical ”in-between” time full of freedom to do as little or as much as desired. Summer seemed endless once the school year ended. Kids “feel” summer in ways that get harder to recreate when real time work calendars are twelve-months busy.
Summer doesn’t let us rest on our glory the way passing a grade did when we were young. A delightful sense of accomplishment and naïvely immature maturity accompanied the thought of new identities that passing particular grades gave us – from elementary school to middle school, middle school to “freshman year.” We had months to prepare and variations on our identities to try out while waiting for the new year to begin.
The last time I felt the magical power of summertime reinvention, I was heading to Carolina for freshman orientation. I announced to my parents with adolescent arrogance that I’d be a different person when I returned home for the Labor Day break. I quickly learned that while adults do change, we’re pretty much the same person at heart, every season of the year. But it’s important to keep changing when it can be for the better.
Let the solstice reminds you of the importance of stepping back, taking time for creative thinking and idle daydreaming. Making space for your playful side to take the controls for a bit can allow important insights to come to light that just might guide you towards a new incarnation as summer unfolds. It’s never too late to try something new.
