Summer is Not Cancelled

I heard through the grapevine that summer was cancelled. Supposedly, we will never have a vaccine, we can’t test people quickly enough, even though we are hella smart and hella rich in this country. Also, traditional school will now be a thing of the past and kids will need to suit up like the old school Power Rangers before they get on the bus, but also don’t get on the bus and only come into the classroom five at a time, and has the instructor watched Groundhog’s Day because he/she is about to do that shit five times in a row in order to get all kids good and educated, but then what if the teacher has their own kids and school is now part time, then those teacher kids will be out on the street selling teacher meth and stolen hand sanitizer. Wow, when you look at it like that, things really turn bleak don’t they?

Well, I am here to tell YOU, Summer is not cancelled. Not in the slightest. Last night for example, I sat in front of a fire, and it wasn’t a metaphorical fire, like the one happening on the White House lawn, but a real fire pit, like lean yourself in close. Wrap a blanket around your torso, cup your hands around your favorite beverage, keep the black flies away kind of fire. The kind where you set your eyes on certain colors and then other colors take their place and pretty soon you have figured out all of the algorithms needed to eat a three tiered chocolate cake in one sitting but take on zero calories. I find if you sit long enough and get mesmerized by the flames, you can forgive yourself for any of mistakes for the day or week. You can’t be on your phone when you do this. It really needs to be you, huddled in the blankets, eyes transfixed on the flames. And then you feel it. Summer. And you hear it too. The peepers, the breeze, the four wheelers, the extra wild life that people are now raising to combat the rising prices at the grocery store, clinking of glasses, the giggling of kids hiding while playing manhunt. Have I won you over yet? All is not lost.

I added my other pictures, because people say you should write gratitude lists and this will improve your life tenfold, but I think gratitude pictures also work. I was going to take my kids to New York this summer, because I don’t want them to be such a ho hum country bumpkin that I feel like I am, but then I was sifting through last year’s pictures and the sand is still within my limits. We live in a gorgeous state and we like to complain because we are three or four seasons behind the rest of the country in terms of fashion, we have to wait in line at Reds Eats in July, some of us aren’t within limits to get spectrum internet, and no one films a movie here unless it is about alligators eating people and then they don’t really film it here, they film it in South Carolina and say it is Maine. But just the same, we got it good. Masks or Not. We’ve got some good hiking, we’ve got water so cold in the ocean, it can soothe the skin and the soul. We can rock climb to our hearts content, and the unevenness of the stone and the pull of the tide make us feel like we are a speck in the universe and we better start making a dent and a difference.

One of my favorite summer activities is berry picking and fingers crossed that’s not shut down, because I sure as heck can social distance that berry field. I admit I have been a berry abuser in the past and when they tell me which row to go in, I nod politely and then go wherever the F I feel like. It’s one of those places where I really break the rules. But think of it, I can bring my own container, I’ll stay in my own lane, maybe I’ll even make a jam out of it. You guys don’t know, don’t be judgmental, I’m really evolving here. Or I could just do what I did last year and buy those pre-made biscuits at Hannaford, chop up the little suckers and we can all spray whip cream into our mouths again.

The hot tub picture is to lift your spirits, I don’t own a hot tub or a pool, but I know a few people who have them and I am praying to God my invite still stands. I texted with Dr. Shah and he said a Lands End bathing suit and enough chorine can kill any kind of virus and also poor spirits, so I’m doing what the doctor ordered. I’m shoving myself into whatever bathing suit I have that sorta fits and I am gettin in there. I’m going to close my eyes and pretend I am at the resort of my dreams and then open them and be reminded that while I get to sit in that tub of goodness, there are people who are working in emergency rooms and ICU’s and make-shift hospitals and the list goes on. And those people are not in hot tubs, because they are at work, fighting this whole dinosaur of suck and so I guess the hot tub, my too tight suit and my eight-year-old beating me over the head with a pool noodle, don’t seem so bad after all.

I added that lovely food plate, because A. I want my husband to bring me breakfast in bed, but also B. It is one of my favorite memories of last summer. Joe and I want to Hartstone Inn and Hideaway in Camden to celebrate all the years of wedded bliss we have experienced and I have never been so elated at the food in front of me in my life. I felt like that little girl who has to be rolled out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory because she is a greedy, selfish dirtbag who can’t keep her grubby paws out of the chocolate bin. I am going to make a reservation there again and I don’t care if I have to stand on a street corner and eat that food out of a twice recycled paper plate, I’m having some. I just want to walk down the road and if only one local shop is open out of 10, I want to buy a coffee out of it. I have decided what the virus limits in availability, I have to use more of my senses when I can access what I enjoy.

For example, one of my favorite all time things to do in the summer is to go for a run in Hallowell, go to Juiced to get a drink I’m not sure I’ll enjoy and sit in one of those chairs Dr. Kam made. I don’t rearrange them, I don’t take them for my own enjoyment because I am not an asshole and also because part of the elation that you get from the chairs is the location of the chairs. When you lean back onto that colored wood and kick your 99 cent flip flops off to the side, spreading your toes out in front of you feeling the vitamin D, something changes in your whole being. I don’t know if the chairs will happen this year which is completely rational. This is why I have a knock off version in front of my house. I need it to hold me over until I can feel the rainbow so to speak.

In closing , keep sharing your build up to summer, your adventures with your loved ones and your fur babies. 2020 might be a scary ex-girlfriend, but we can all still find places to leave her in the dust.