It’s summer…again. Every year it seems to get here quicker and drag on longer—although I admit that it may have something to do with fall in Southern California basically being a sequel to summer. If it were a movie, it might be called Summer Part 2: Fire and Wind!
Today I stumbled on a little trick to combat the summer doldrums. Instead of thinking about how hot and bored everyone is (or at least how hot and bored they tell me they are, and by “they” I mean my children), I looked back at the week and thought about the new things I had experienced.
“Prickly Paradise” Pastel on paper Click here to view prints and products
It started with my son, who asked if he could have some items from the mess I was cleaning out of my art cabinet to make a “work of art.” Holding a bottle of glue, he began to collect things and assemble his first real collage. I took a break from my own organizing to watch him as he delighted in assembling and gluing things together. Instead of looking at it as another mess I would have to clean up (which I’ll admit was my first thought), I began to admire his enjoyment of creating art in a new way. I began to think of some of the other new things that I’d experienced this week: my daughter and I tried making “Molasses in snow” from the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook, and my sister had gotten me to finally try kombucha, which I loved. I experimented with a bigger acrylic skins painting, which is now finished and waiting to be photographed. So even though it was a hot, seemingly monotonous week of summer, there were actually many new experiences to sit back and appreciate. My daughter was disappointed to discover that the molasses candy tasted too much like (you guessed it) molasses, but the experience was certainly worth the effort.
What new things have you experienced this summer? What did you learn from those new experiences? Even if they’re small events, new experiences can be a great way to get past those summer doldrums.
