So lots of summer diversions are free, natural, neighborhood-y kind of things. Like standing with a garden hose in the yard watering (on your appropriate watering day) the tomato plant you bought at Home Depot that has come up with a whopping one tomato in five weeks. Or having a drink on the front porch after the NBC Nightly News, if you are lucky enough to have a front porch.
But one of my favorite drills is the early morning walk. With the long summer’s hot days starting to creep over us now, those of us who like to be outdoors need to reset our “outdoor†clocks so we get our fix of the natural world—without turning into one of those dizzy sweating pale-skinned 20-year-olds who consider jogging at high noon a militant act of ultimate fitness.
I have always been a morning person anyway but summertime demands getting up extra early sometimes, tiptoeing through the quiet house opening the blinds, stepping outside to a steady ocean breeze, watching the sun slip up behind piles of clouds in from the Bahamas. The air is perfect then, still light and soft, and you can take a walk before most everyone is up. Ospreys are overhead; there are fresh turtle tracks in the sand. You might see an elaborate Wolf Spider web covered in dew, or a land crab disappearing into the scrub. It is the hour before work and breakfast and car pools and the news; it is your time.
These are mornings, like the “Seinfeld†show, about nothing, really—but they have everything to do with summer. They remind you where you live and that the long hot days start in perfect beauty. They allow you access to Florida when most people are hiding from it, and they give you an excuse to hunker down later, when the sun is high.
So go on, get up. Take a walk to get the paper or take a dip or take the dog out. Take it down a notch or two. Give yourself a summer morning or two on your own terms.
