number six, with summer lovin'
summer is here, a cocktail recipe for warm weather, and another beauty moment
The memory of summers past is deep within your muscles. All it takes is that first warm breeze for them to stretch and relax into the familiar movements of afternoons wasted, calling up your best friend to spend the day getting doing whatever, and the full body satisfaction of a sandwich and a bag of chips after getting out of the water. Even if you are untethered from any school calendars the season brings with it the same thrill as the last school bell ringing out in June. I was the kind of kid who loved school, who always did all my homework and was excited for summer reading lists. I appreciated summer for not so much for the end of “school” so much as the end of all the things that went along with it, like putting on a public face and forced social situations and alarm clocks. When summer came I was able to settle into a rhythm that suited me much better. I did not have the kinds of parents who forced athletics or had the resources to send us away to summer camps. Mostly, I did what I wanted, which was easy because it wasn’t a lot. The freedom of empty schedules and a library card. I remember sleeping in until noon and mornings when my mom opened all the windows and played her records and my brother’s asking me to watch them play video games for hours.
Like any Michigan summer there were escapes to lakes and parks, trips to Cedar Point. Long weekends swimming and running around with my cousins are some of my most vivid summertime memories. Even your most self-contained creatures like myself crave some space to stretch out from time to time. It was never really about what we were doing, the joy is in simply being there, in summer, with the sun shining down on your shoulders. At my house we didn’t have a proper yard, but we had a deck in back and a little garden in front with a couple yards of lush green grass. I would grab a blanket and a book and lay out needing nothing more. I left my small town as soon as I could and opted for big cities and even tinier living spaces. That decision is only recently starting to seem unwise, a combination of getting older and quarantine reflections, but long ago I learned it does not take a lot of space to feel free. Wherever I have gone there has always been space for a blanket and a book in city parks or on my Brooklyn rooftop. My summers back then looked a lot like my life right now. Without the routine of a job I have found myself returning to that natural rhythm. Just in time for summer.
This season comes along at a critical time in the life of this pandemic where the world is slowly and carefully (we hope) unfurling. As every commercial has taken care to remind us “these are uncertain times.” Okay, sure I cannot argue with that except to add that most times are sort of uncertain, just usually not for so many of us at the same time. For those of us who didn’t grow up with much I think in many ways we are better prepared for a crisis like this, hoping and striving yes but not having the certainty to believe a particular sort of future was promised to you. You don’t expect a lot and you know how to get by with less. We are certainly entering very uneven times in terms of how people will experience the next stage of this crisis where the city we live in, what resources we have, and what risk we have to accept in order to work and live our lives will be making all the difference.
There are a lot of hopes about how we will come out of this moment in history changed. I do believe that many people will be changed, marked by this moment in time, but I am much less optimistic we will see any systemic change, at least in the short term. What we will see are the differences will come to mean more. For those of us without a home or ability to rent a home to escape to, let alone having parents who own a home with a yard or a pool or beachfront property, we will continue experiencing the world at home or in public spaces with the risk they carry. Shared sacrifice of going without haircuts and parties are threadbare ties as we see how unevenly people are sacrificing their lives, their health, and their economic stability. As for the wealthy, they have always fled the city for the summer. If there ever is there is certainly no solidarity in leisure time.
The heat of summer has brings with it an electric and unpredictable energy. The kind you can still feel coursing out of you on a Friday afternoon knowing you have hours before dusk and gathering on city street corners in the dog days of August. Days yawn with unknown possibility. We dress precariously, willing to lose a shirt or shorten our skirt to impossible heights for a cool breeze. I love the way it can make you feel as wild as the humidity makes your hair look. How a heat wave can hold you hostage to your air conditioning or send the entire borough out to the beach. How plans are made spontaneously or not at all.
What does summer mean this year if we can’t have the freedom to roam and seek out the carefree abandon its long days reliably bring? The possibility of a New York city summer without the steaming subway commutes, block parties and Rockaway beach days buying nutcrackers off of complete strangers, is a very strange one indeed. Yesterday was Memorial Day and it was quiet but the energy of welcoming this season could not be quelled entirely by quarantine. Outside of our apartment window a family has put out a grill on the sidewalk and are making up some hotdogs, their the sounds of summer echoing through our block. Summer will find a way. If we are given the gift of this summer, of those days that will be hot and long turning into perfect nights, we should love every sweaty moment. What can we do this summer?
We can lay about languidly in the heat and stretch out like cats in the sun. Those days when it is much too hot for any good thinking or accomplishing of anything, where you wear as little as possible and eat only fruits. We can do that.
We can really lunch. We can take a break midday and pull out all our favorite things to eat. Soft sourdough bread, cold pasta salad, and ripe avocados. Make an egg salad sandwich with some bodega chips on the side and feel full and happy.
We can be outside, wherever we can find it and feel safe being. Rooftops, backyards, parks and beaches. We can bring a blanket and make it our domain and feel the sun on our legs.
We can wake up in the morning and drink coffee from our favorite mug while asking ‘what should we do today?’ There is so much hope in that question, and why not? It is a summer day.
At the end of day we can set our work down and mix a cocktail. Maybe a Negroni, glowing orange like vacation sunsets, or a margarita, salty like your summer skin, and cheers to a day well done and a night ahead.
We can take showers at all times of day, whenever we feel too hot or simply need to calm our mind and think for a moment. We can get out to put lotion on damp skin that makes us glisten and lie down on the bed watching videos on our phones.
We can make uniforms out of denim shorts, soft vintage tees, breezy dresses, white sneakers and unbuttoned linen shirts. We can give up on anything that is itchy or too tight or unsettles us because it is a time for treating our bodies with love.
We can be bored and declare it loudly. We can come up with activities to entertain ourselves. We can look back at the end of the day and say to ourselves ‘what a day full of sweetness, it was full of so much and so little.’
We can make everything an adventure. Walking through the neighborhood to gather supplies for dinner we can envision futures and project and lives we will live. We can walk down new blocks and find new favorite places and carry home our spoils.
We can love where we live and be good neighbors, maybe really feel like neighbors for the first time. Keeping track of which businesses are open you can support how you can, recognizing the way these stores and restaurants have taken care of you, you can take care of them.
We can listen to the Savage remix on repeat all summer long. Blast it out of our windows and cars and feel the song of the summer lift us all up together into a place of good vibes only.
We can run outside at the sound of the ice cream truck and get a vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. It will start to melt and drip on our fingers as we try to savor every technicolor lick.
We can take long naps in the mid-afternoon. Slumbers so warm and deep that an indeterminable amount of time has passed, and we feel no guilt at all. There is nowhere else we could possibly be.
We can move our bodies and let the sweat drip and not care. We can put lemon in our water to hydrate us afterward and be grateful for our resiliency and strength.
We can take edibles and spend the whole day with the air conditioner blasting watching movies. The big blockbuster kind with lots of sequels so we can watch them all and get lost in a world glossy and unreal.
We can get the Sunday paper delivered and spend all morning working our way through the sections. Feel our head and hearts fill up with all the things happening and all the smart people writing it up for us. On Sunday sitting with my coffee and the paper I read over the names of only a small fraction of American lives lost to this pandemic so far. In each brief obituary I tried to see that person, that life, and thought about a parallel reality where each of them were having their morning doing the simple things they loved the most. After sending out this newsletter I am going to have a glass of cold white wine and start making some cherry pie that we will eat with vanilla ice cream. I am going to choose to love this day it because I have it, and it is summer, and that is pretty lucky.
recommended for…
something to drink: In the spirit of summer I wanted to share my new favorite summer cocktail. It is just a little bitter and sweet and refreshing and I look forward to having many more:
The Negroni Sbagliato
Put some ice in a glass (rocks glass or wine glass works)
Pour 1 oz Campari + 1 oz Sweet Vermouth
Top with a pour of Prosecco (2-3 oz)
Stir and garnish with an orange or lemon peel. Saluti!
something to read: Sometimes as the weather gets nicer I want to read something darker. Nothing like a serial killer story on the beach. Last week I read Eileen, the 2016 novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, which certainly fit the bill. Moshfegh is a precise writer who is gifted at creating worlds that are off kilter and perhaps disturbing but that you cannot look away from. Eileen tells the story of a woman who you are somehow both repulsed and captivated by but, most importantly, you can’t quite figure out and she makes you really want to. The story is told at the pace of a Hitchcockian thriller with details expertly revealed. Pick it up at Better World Books.
voters (all of you): A great piece detailing Joe Biden’s policy agenda came out on Vox today, which I found to be extremely helpful. It can be easy to lose sight in these campaigns of what actually people are proposing, and ultimately hopeful to consider what pragmatically could come out of a Biden presidency. Also just a very good reminder how important all the other races are if you want to see actual legislative change, something we are easily distracted from in a Presidential election year. Read here.
a beauty moment: Speaking of summer, I am recommending a deodorant this week! I am a very sweaty person so genuinely never thought I could use anything that didn’t have like a sheet of aluminum on my armpit, but I was wrong. I have been using Primally Pure deo for over a year now and I really love it. I would recommend the charcoal and blue tansy in particular but all are good! Check it out if you are in the market for a non-toxic deodorant that doesn’t suck.
with love,
caitlin rose
