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I wasn’t much into summer when I was a teenager. I was of the more gothic variety. I wore black jeans and sweatshirts to the beach. I opted more for smoking in the shade while my friends frolicked in the waves in their bikini’s. I let go of some of my angst and I enjoyed the beach more as I got older… I went with boyfriends and girlfriends and found a love for the romance that is a picnic on the beach, or the sand between your toes, and in your hair…
Then I moved to Indonesia, the land of the endless summer. And finally, I embraced it. Summer, with all it’s salt and sand and freckles and sunbleached hair. I loved the romance of it then, even more. The long days and the cold juices. The warm tropical water and the pumping waves complete with reef sharks and turtles, stingrays and flying fish… Summer was new love and best friends and beers and parties and fun and light… that first year I would have happily hung on to that spectacular summer with both hands and never let it go. I would live it over and over again, even now, if I could.
I would go back in a second and just be there, in the joy of it all.
But time changes things. It changes us. It changes everything.
Nowadays, summer is less romantic and more practical. It is hats and sandals and sunscreen. It is buckets and spades and shell collections complete with sand crusted carseats and tired toddler tantrums. But even the practical is punctuated by beautiful hot days and salty mornings at the beach. Late afternoons with homemade icy poles and drinking from the hose. Laughter, late nights and early mornings…
Summer in Australia can be unforgiving. It is hot and dry and dusty, and the heatwaves can seem oppressive at best… but all that is forgiven when you stand on the soft white sand with the blue water lapping at your feet…
Common Threads Series One has just kicked off this week with posts submitted under the theme of “summer”… there are some spectacular photographs and two lovely, thoughtful, generous pieces of writing from Sam and Sonia… Summer means a little something different to everyone… What does it mean to you?
Sarah - Summer is my favourite season of all. I guess it sort of has to be when you live in Queensland. The long days punctuated by balmy evenings. Wind-whipped hair and salty skin. Fierce thunderstorms that fill the earth with desperatly needed water one-day and flood cities and towns the next.
I am inspired most by Summer – her light and colour, scents and scenes. She fills me up, like a bear preparing for hibernation, ready for the long, although mild winter ahead.
I can feel that today will be warm already and our home is filled with bright golden light pouring in the kitchen window. Today there will be fresh summer stone fruits and an abundance of herbs at the farmers market. Clearly I am still experiencing my romance with Summer, though I can’t wait for the practical, filled with heat-induced tantrums and naked beach frolicking, and plenty of drinking from the hose!
Sarah - (oooops, published to soon!) I can see the romance in your sweet, Bo-filled Summer. It’s perfection in my eyes.
Sar xx
Ashley - You writing is so beautiful. I love the way you captured the change on a personal level, yet the inherited beauty that is, and forever will be, summer. xo
Sash - Thanks Ashley 🙂 xox