Savoring Summer Solstice

Paying attention at the height of summer.

Read about the making of this Black Ash basket here.

Dear friends and readers, Happy Summer Solstice!

I am sitting at the patio table in my backyard sweating. It’s not yet 7AM, but it has been hot for days. The birds crowding the cherry tree are chatting and chirping to each other between mouthfuls of ripe fruit. I’m almost being swallowed by vines from the grape arbor, overgrown and searching for purchase, but there are so many little pearls of baby grapes bunched up and ready to ripen, I can’t bear to stunt any of the fun at this point. I should have trimmed and groomed when it was cold. So it goes. Let the vines go wild!

Nearly every inch of the elderberry bush is white with blooms that will miraculously become a million-billion dark berries. We will boil them down into syrup to keep us healthy through the winter. But now it’s summer and it’s a moment of bliss.

I was in the garden early one morning this past weekend, right at the tail end of a dawn downpour. Usually I like to be outside with my ears open to the sounds of world, sirens and airplanes and birds and all of it, but I had a new audio book I was excited for and so put in my earbuds. It’s a brand new book called Altern by one of my current favorite writers, Elke Heidenreich. Her work isn’t translated, as far as I know, but she reads the audio version herself and I just love listening to her speak German. I delight in her playful language and am moved by her deeply resonant observations.

Tidying up the garden is lovely just after a rain, but wearing gloves that are heavy with wet mud makes it hard to hit pause and scrawl quotes from Elke that I want to remember into my journal! This book she just wrote, at age 81, is about aging. One of the fabulous things she said, that I managed to write down, is:

“Today I know that happiness is not a condition one has to chase desperately. Happiness always only lasts for a moment and I have learned how to recognize it and enjoy it.” - Elke Heidenreich, “Altern” (my own translation)

Sitting here, the humid air making me think of Caribbean Islands and wondering if I should go jump in the sea (I mean lake), I must admit, I’m happy. Ahhh, what a gift that little breeze is; and this creamy milk tea is just the right temperature. These long days leading up to the peak of summer have been full, and there’s more to finish up today. I am preparing for the trip of a lifetime, which is a packing challenge.

Summer Solstice is a moment to savor.

The 94 second audio above is me reading from my Monday Morning Gratitude journal. I recorded it right here, in my back yard, so I think you’ll hear some of those cherry-cheery birds!

Before I share my gratitudes, as is my weekly habit that occasionally spills into this Wanderlife space, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that half of what we call 2024 is behind us. In a linear sense, my Wanderlife project is half over. I launched this creative endeavor on my 49th birthday: December 30th. Over the summer solstice my family and I will be joining my father and step-mother for a vacation in Alaska. This is their 50th birthday gift to me, six months early!!

In Altern, Elka says she is certain now, after a lifetime of learning, that our hearts make their own happiness. So yes, sitting in a hand-me-down kimono sipping my morning tea while the birds sing makes my little heart happy, and so does the prospect of a family adventure!

I’m excited to spend the solstice summer days in a place where dawn and dusk stretch from both horizons! The natural rhythms of the planet will be on our side, supporting the desire to savor moments of awe, wonder, and happiness. I may not be fully packed, but I am ready.

Thank you for reading and being here, part of this Wanderlife project. I promise to share some stories from Alaska when I get back to my writing spot among the grapevines and berries.

Sincerely,

PS: Check out

Building Hope

— Julie writes about architecture, community, and the mysteries of our relationship with the natural world. Subscribe so you don’t miss an interview Julie did with me, to be published on July 11th! Her provocative, caring questions reminded me of a story about running from a ‘monster’ on a mountain, gathering walnuts, and other things. Hope you enjoy!

Gratitudes written Monday morning, transcribed from my journal

• Grateful for these muggy summer mornings and for a morning post-rainstorm to get my hands in the mud, gloves heavy and coated with rich soil, as I cleared weeds that are filling in around the peppers and garlic, and I feel bad having written the word weeds because it is just purslane and amaranth and other beautiful plants but I wanted to give the chosen plants a fighting chance while we get out of Dodge for a stretch, wanted to give them space to thrive and flourish.

• Grateful for a muggy day, sending us four to the lake to cool down and splash around and goof off and grateful for my man who loves to swim on Father’s Day.

• Grateful for a muggy evening in the garden of a friend, a special and beautifully cultivated enclave of textures and colors and life and stones and shapes and lush sensual abundance, and grateful for the gathering of friends who sat circled there, women who love me and know me and lift me up and give me nourishment with laughter and stories that lead one-to-the-next til I feel a part of something, like together we’ve woven a cloak of shared experience around ourselves and we know that the evening will live on in our memories and become a story in the book of stories we tell when we gather to fan the flames of our deep and evolving friendship, and the evening energized me in a way I’m so grateful for, so grateful for this moment of summer attentiveness, for the wisdom to notice these moments of happiness.