Finding My Summer Rhythm

The school year schedule comes to a close. The end of creative projects, assignments, quizzes and tests leaves my days open and free to pursue my own interests, delights, and ideas. My boys accomplish their daily chores, watch some videos, and then spend their afternoons playing with their neighborhood tribe. I will put all the textbooks and notebooks away, and won't think or work on homeschooling again until mid-July.  These are the beginnings of the lazy days of summer.

I think about the ways I will rest, recharge, serve, and create. I desire a balanced life of input and output because that is where the thriving happens. Too much input and we become selfish sponges, filled with inertia, stuck and indecisive. Too much output and we become exhausted, irritable, with hidden resentment bubbling under the surface. The healthy life seems to be the one where we breathe in the life of rest and recreation and breathe out creativity and generosity. That is the intersection where I want to live this summer.

I grab a notebook. I know that I plan to live my annual Summer Sabbatical from mid-May until about July 15th. June is the month where all the pressures are laid to rest and I choose my own adventure. I remind myself that I want to live with curiosity and self-compassion. Bucket lists never have served me. They feel like an unrealistic, idealistic taskmaster that doesn't take into account my fatigue, my whims, my desire to live more intuitively.  Instead, I allow questions to rise up and jot them down as quickly as they come. I give myself prompts to think, to ponder, to wonder about. I even start a Pinterest board for images that speak to the longings of my heart right now.

I decide I want to make this easy Artisan bread. In fact, that dough is rising on my counter right now. I want to learn a five minute morning yoga practice. I stumble upon this five minute desk practice when reading an article, and decide that I want to try that for the next week. I remember that I enjoyed making Spiced Peach Jam a few summers ago, and write that down as a possibility. I want to embroider more Sashiko coasters, crochet a poncho, and put my blog on a free platform. I have made progress on all three! I find a few new series for Mike and I to explore since we finished Turn: Washington's Spies on Netflix and also caught up with The Crown. I purchase the used book Excellent Women by Barbara Pym to read leisurely since finishing all of my hardcover library selections last week. I love leading summer book clubs each year, but am wondering if in the midst of all the fluidity with COVID 19 if that is something that will happen. I am not sure, and decide that I don't have to make that decision right now. It is perfectly okay to allow ideas to sit and simmer and not be a slave to a filled-in calendar.  I book a weekend at a State Park for our family to have an adventure together!

Next I want to decide what I want my morning routine to be. It's been off for about 2-3 weeks. I'm not sure what the issue is because I was doing the same life-giving practices every morning for a long time, but then it all fell apart. I haven't pinpointed what happened yet, but all I know is that every day we get the chance to begin again. Tomorrow I won't try to jump back in to my full routine, but simply try to get back to two or three practices. I can tend to be all-or-nothing so I have to remind myself that showing up is the most important part. Doing something is better than nothing at all.

This week I will ponder what it looks like to give and serve during this season. Will I write some hand-written notes to friends? Send some love in the mail? Host an evening of drinks on my back porch? Mentoring? Gift my neighbors with homemade goods? I will sit with some ideas and discern my next right step.

How about you? Do you make a plan for your summer? Lists? Ideas? How do you refresh your soul during this time?