Lost - Three Months of Hazy, Lazy Days
Where are those hazy, lazy days of Summer?
Every time I turn around lately, someone is bemoaning the fact that the summer is racing by and they haven’t had a chance to enjoy it yet.
What happened to long, lazy days of warm sun, a good book, and a tall glass of iced tea or lemonade?
This probably sounds strange, but when I was the mother of three much younger sons summer was slower. Even in the midst of bringing up three very active boys, my husband and I savored summers with days at the lake while the boys took swimming lessons, evenings on bleachers while the boys played Little League baseball, and a week or two traveling around the country on vacation seeing the sights and the relatives.
Summer had a beginning and an end shaped by the boys’ school year. And in between were opportunities to slow down, to play, to rest, to vacation. Now spring blurs into summer and then blurs into fall. And the sad thing is, often the only thing to mark its passing is my husband’s weekly mowing of the yard and the blooming of the daylilies.
I feel as if we have lost the secrets to enjoying summer. We have forgotten the value and importance of taking time away—the value and importance of relaxation and retreat
When did this happen? How? Rest, relaxation and retreat are important not just for our stress levels. They are vital to the creative process. Vital!
Just ask a pregnant woman in her first three months of pregnancy, the ultimate creative act. When I was pregnant with each of our sons, I would get so tired and sleepy producing all that nourishment for those quickly dividing fetal cells that I often fell asleep in my chair, head to knees, while the world went on without me.
It is the same with our creativity. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to be creative, brilliant, innovative when you are tired? For our creative ideas to gestate, to grow strong and mature to the point of birth, we need to rest. To stop frenetic activity. To let go of our need to be doing and relax into being. To retreat from the noise and demands of daily life so that we can feed our mind and soul. Silence, rest, time away allows us not only to nourish current creative ideas but also helps us to renew the creative well.
I admire my husband’s friend from high school, Bill. He still knows how to relax. He works hard but he also is very good at taking time to slow down and unwind whether for a half hour or for a week. For example, on Sunday afternoons, just before dinner, Bill will pour himself a bourbon, and go out and sit on his patio. He’ll take slow, leisurely sips, enjoy his yard and read the paper. No rush, no hurrying from one activity to the next. Just a sip of bourbon, a glance about the yard, a long in and out of breath. Ahhhh!
Imagine that. Taking time each day to slow down, breath deeply and say, “Ahhhhh.” Imagine what that might do for our stress levels. For our health. For our creativity.
I think Bill makes a great role model. A relaxation guru. I am thinking of going to sit at his feet and asking him to tell me the secrets of summer.
Good thing he lives in Indiana – not some high peak in the Himalayas. Now if only I liked bourbon!