making a summer well spent.

embracing summertime nostalgia, accepting a little discomfort in pursuit of the great outdoors, and making time for good, seasonal food shared with good people.

I’ve done my first camping trip of the year, stood surrounded by fireflies on a dark night, and picked up my first batch of cherries at the grocery store. It is officially summertime. As an avid lover of seasons, I’ve been mulling over how I want to spend this summer. I recently heard a snippet of an interview where Michelle Obama spoke about measuring her life through the possibility of having 25 summers left: “with 25 more summers, I wanna feel each one of them.” I love that sentiment, of making every summer count and to really feel each season pass slowly by. I want to make this summer, and hopefully the next one and the ones after that, count.

Last summer, in my effort to make the most of the season, I made myself a very short bucket list and it really did make a difference in finally getting around to those summer-y activities that I had never prioritized in years’ past. I haven’t yet made a bucket list this year and instead I have been thinking more about specific ways I can make this feel like a summer well spent.

Living my best nostalgic summer last year. Photo on film by Chuck Kress.

Embracing summertime nostalgia

A few weeks back, I trekked over to Wisconsin to catch the fireflies and spend some time with family. During the drive, the 2003 song “Kissing the Lipless” by the Shins came on. I hadn’t heard it in years and it immediately hit me what a beautiful, sunny, nostalgic song it is. It felt like a slow, summer afternoon and sent me down a whole rabbit hole of listening to indie songs from 2003. I started a nostalgic summer playlist that will be my personal soundtrack this summer. Suggestions very welcome.

Along with some musical nostalgia, I also want to rewatch a few of my favorite nostalgic films set during the summer - The Parent Trap, Moonrise Kingdom and Before Midnight are all top of mind. (Basically this list of movies that feel like summertime that I shared last year.)

For me, nothing better encapsulates the timeless feeling of nostalgia than a camping trip. I love spending a whole weekend outside, cooking camp meals and completely losing my sense of what time it is (or even what day of the week). It also means that the day’s entertainment (swimming, cards, chatting around a bonfire) is entirely offline. We had a wonderful camping trip way up north over the summer solstice and my goal is to camp at least once a month in July, August and September.

In this vein, I felt so inspired by the ideas that Brittany Viklund shared in How to Have a Throwback Summer. This post felt like exactly how I want this summer to feel. A few highlights from her list:

rent movies from the library

make homemade popsicles

enjoy rootbeer floats

go to a drive-in

play a board game or cards on the deck

Spending time outside, and embracing a little discomfort

Every year when the warmer months come along, there’s always an initial honeymoon period where every bit of sunshine feels like a precious gift and I want to eat each and every meal outside. It’s never too long before the mosquitoes start taking over, the days get way too hot, or the nights get way too humid and I find myself spending a lot more time indoors than I’d like. This summer, my goal is to truly embrace time spent outdoors all summer long, even on the days where it is a little uncomfortable or inconvenient to do so.

This spring I reread Enchantment by Katherine May. It’s all about how there is wonder to be had all around us, we just have to pay attention to experience it. In the epilogue, Katherine endeavors to see a meteor shower. She writes about how over the course of the calendar year, there are somewhere around 12 meteor showers potentially visible. While we all know that a seeing meteor shower could turn out to be absolutely stunning and a memory that you treasure for years, we rarely brave the late night for the chance to see one. There are lots of excuses why we don’t make the effort (we live in cities with light pollution, often it’s cloudy or there is a chance of rain, we simply have work in the morning). I so identified with this section, having skipped more than one chance to see the northern lights or a meteor shower for any number of reasons (which of course I can’t really remember now). I also felt compelled to make the effort to see the enchantment right outside my door, be it a meteor shower, a great night of stars, or an early morning sunrise.

Along these same lines, Nina at the Seasonalist mentioned a recent survey in this post that concluded a perfect summer includes seeing 8 sunrises, 11 sunsets, and going for a swim 11 times. I know the exact numbers aren’t what matters here, but I love the idea of intentionally making time for these seasonal highlights. I think on average I only get in the water a handful of times most summers and rarely wake up before sunrise, so this really will take some effort for me. Waking up super early or jumping in cold water aren’t exactly comfortable or convenient. Yet I have memories from years ago of specific sunrises and swimming excursions. This is exactly the kind of worthwhile (minor!) discomfort that I want to embrace this summer.

Me: gets excited about something, immediately makes a Notion page.

Enjoying good, seasonal food with good people

There is no easier time of year to embrace seasonal eating than summer. Trucks on the side of the road sell fresh-picked sweet corn. Backyards and farmers markets abound with juicy heirloom tomatoes. The fruit! Cherries and raspberries and watermelon and magical, magical peaches. I want to enjoy every summer eating experience that I can and specifically share all that good summer-y food with good people. In my dream summer, each day ends with a leisurely meal, eaten around a picnic table where everyone lingers laughing and chatting well past dark. While I won’t have that every day, I do want to make the effort to host friends and family over the course of the summer. And in a continuation from last summer, I will keep trying to make Friday Night Pizza Night a true habit.

The past several years, we have had a weekly CSA box of fresh vegetables and occasionally fruit. I love being a member of a CSA but the one downside is that having a bounty of produce on hand, I have rarely visited farmer’s markets in past summers. This year, we decided to take a year off of our CSA, knowing we’d be out of town quite a bit. That means this summer I would really like to make the most of the many nearby farmer’s markets here! Is there any more quintessential summer morning than walking a few blocks and browsing over teeming baskets of strawberries, local snap peas, and fresh baked goods?

In other related priorities, I want to eat all the fruit this summer! With fleeting seasons for stone fruits and melons and every berry under the sun, I want to make the most of it and say yes to every grocery store or farmer’s market impulse (fruit) purchase. I also want to finally make all those dessert recipes I have saved over the years that utilize summer fruit. (A toasted almond stone fruit cake, sour cherry and sesame galette, torn plum browned butter cake are all top of mind.) Baking a summer-y dessert like this not only requires you to embrace seasonal fruit, it is also a natural invitation to gather a group of loved ones to share it with.

Finally, I want to capture some of my husband’s English pub culture here in Minnesota and enjoy regular pints outside. Grabbing a quick pint and sitting out on a patio at a local brewery is such a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon. It’s social, it’s outdoors, and I want to make more time for it this year.

From a little nostalgia, to plenty of outdoor time to fleeting summer produce, there is a lot of summer goodness to be savored this season! What is top of mind for you to make this a summer worth spending?

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also enjoy:

• summer outside: a bucket list to embrace the season

• summer reading: books for sweltering days and long evenings

• summer outside: catching the sunset

Thank you for reading! If you’d like more nudges to live seasonally, please subscribe to seasonal things. Coming up this summer: seasonal reading lists, food dispatches, and gentle invitations to just get outside.