Weekend Meditation: Summer is for Ripening
Today’s meditation is a wish for you*: may you be thoroughly, completely, absolutely in the middle of Summer. May you notice the hot pricks of sun on your skin (maybe just a little too hot but not too too hot.) May you wear big fat sunglasses and little patches of sweat here and there on your body. I hope your pace has slowed, even just a little. You can even be a bit cranky, but not so much that it completely spoils the fun.
*with apologies to folks in the Southern hemisphere!
May you know the delightful, crisp slap of walking into an air conditioned space and the melting, momentary relief of taking your shivery body back into the heat of the day.
May you know ice-cream cones and popsicles. Drinks make with gin and cucumbers and lots of ice. Various and delicious things made with ripe tomatoes – things (BLT sandwiches, gazpacho, The Perfect Tomato Salad) that can only really be made with summer tomatoes. Summer tomatoes so deeply red it’s almost indecent. And orange and yellow and purple tomatoes, too. And green even. An intensity of tomatoes! An embarrassment of tomatoes! A sloppy, juicy, sybaritic festival of tomatoes!
May you pick bits of corn gnawed from the cob from your teeth. May barbecue smoke linger in your hair and beach sand on the tops of your feet. May you slurp and swallow briny things from the sea and press icy tall glasses of lemonade to your forehead.
For you, I wish peaches and plums and six different kinds of berries! Ripe melons and fresh mint, and basil sprigs in your cocktails! State fair adventures with ferris wheels and pig races! Funnel cake!
Summer is for ripening, for allowing the sugar to come forth and the protective layers to soften. It’s juicy and sweet and just this side of starting to decline (the good side.) May you feast on it as if this is the last summer ever. Don’t waste it! Don’t waste this precious time, beyond price. Grab it, lean into it, drink it all up while you can!
(Image: Dana Velden)