Welcome to week 10. The end of Summer of Love. It’s hard to believe we are already here. But here we are.
And that is the essence of this week, and really of every Summer of Love week: Here. We. Are.
It is essential to Be. Here.
This morning on my back porch I could hear a rooster. And cricket-y sounding creatures. And early adventurers out on their boats.
These are the sounds of summer.
And I could see so much green—grasses and trees and…wait. Orange. Yellow. Hints of red.
And suddenly instead of thinking of summer I was worrying about homework and carpools and meals that are more about how fast can you shovel food and far less about how long you can linger over conversations.
I was physically on my porch, and emotionally somewhere in the middle of October.
It’s time to come back. Time to stay here. Time to return to where we began.
Summer of Love Week One started when it was 65 degrees and cloudy. Current weather conditions? It’s cloudy and 63 degrees. And our work that first week was to light our way–to find the feelings that would be the summer’s twinkle lights, the emotions we would hang one by one along the sky as the weeks went by. We decided how we wanted to feel. Giddy. Connected. Thrilled. Lazy. It was so fun to hear what was on your lists. To know what you were anticipating for the months ahead.
How are you today? How are you feeling? And how did it feel to guide your summer by emotions instead of events? Sure the calendar often told us what needed to happen—it usually does. But we got to practice thinking about how we wanted to feel, and how to craft a day, an hour, a moment towards feeling it.
Time to do that again.
Time to sit down with yourself. Find a fresh scrap of paper. Be Here. And decide, no matter how cluttered the calendar gets this fall, this is what I want to feel. (if you are at a bit of a loss the list of 250 emotions is right here.)
The autumn drags us from harvest moons to new year’s, and instead of experiencing it as a blur, we want to Be Here. And we get Here by naming what emotions we want to experience. Because our emotions are things we feel. They show up in our bodies—in the pit of our stomachs, the apples of our cheeks, the center of our chests. When we notice what’s going on in our bodies, it keeps us Here.
So take the time. Make the time. Write your list of how you want to be. Now gently tuck your slip of paper someplace you’ll trip across it in the months ahead so you can check in with yourself. Be with yourself.
Then sit down next to your kiddo, and ask them: how do you feel today? And what do you want to feel next?
So much of a child’s life is scripted by the adults around them. Naming how we want to feel allows them to author their own experience. And teaches them that Right Here is where we belong.
Xoxo,
p.s. Thank you for being here with me, through all of Summer of Love. Belonging to you is one of my favorite feelings.
p.p.s. Want to linger a bit more before the rush of fall begins?
Here’s the choose-your-own adventure of week 1.
And the joy of week 2.
Should you read week 3? I think you should. 😉
And check out what’s left Unsaid in week 4.
As for week 5? It was hot and sticky and sweaty and time to say “will you paddle for me?”