Sense of Summer

I have been busy of late capturing images of people and things.  Which is good.  A photograph is a wonderful tool to communicate so many unspoken intricacies.  You know, the whole “a picture is worth a thousand words” bit.  But I have missed writing.  I’ve had a little internal nag lately, encouraging me to narrate for once instead of illustrate.  So here goes…

Perhaps because of our 6-month snow cover this past winter, and a soggy, destructive spring, my appreciation and enjoyment of summer has been heightened this year.  As John Steinbeck asked, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?”  So at the start of this very sugary summer, I stopped to ponder what makes it so.  What exactly is it that makes summer on the prairie so wonderfully redemptive?

LIGHT

As a photographer, the first things that come to mind are visual and are centered around light.  Every season has its own beautiful light, but summer’s light stretches from the 4am pre-dawn blush to the last pre-midnight glow on the western horizon.  There’s the crisp, clean light in the first hours after sunrise; the harsh, bleached-out light of the midday, often wavering over hot pavement.  And then afternoon’s antonym – the dappled shade beneath the leafy tree, begging to be explored.  Evening shows us her soft side with warm, burnished, wrap-around light.  She illuminates the tiniest air-borne seeds and dust, perhaps in homage to the snows of winter.

Summer’s light is not always gentle.    Supercharged bolts of lightning collide and sear darkened storm-clad skies, reminding prairie-dwellers of the season’s silent power.  Birthed as small, cumulus sky-dwellers, now swollen and heavy with their own young, the clouds deliver the rain with thunderous cries and groans.  They are accompanied by strong and at times violent winds, a messy and carnal event.  And in its wake, the after-birth.  The world is cleansed.  Massive rainbows painted on a resplendent midnight canvas, anchored in an ocean of brilliant chartreuse rapeseed.

Night’s illumination is more subtle, but no less radiant.  Stay up late one summer night.  Really late.  With no man-made light for company, turn your gaze upward and see, really SEE, the jeweled magnificence of the earth’s crown.   Stars and planets, galaxies and constellations, stretching their beams through light years against a colorless backdrop.

COLOR

Summer’s hue is quick and vivid.  The stretching green landscape under vast azure sky is a sight admired for only a few short weeks, giving way to golden waves by mid-August.  Ribbons of silver highway are flanked by yellow-flowered weeds, their ditches dotted with the pale pink of the Alberta wild rose.  And summer color moves – moves with the brilliant goldfinch, darts with the ruby throat of the hummingbird.  It sings with the vermillion breast of the robin and glows with iridescence on the blue damselfly.   Lie on your back, like you did in your youth, and take in the brilliant white of the shape-shifters above you.

SOUND

Take a walk through a prairie small-town – a quirky collection of streets and farms, gas pumps and curling rinks – and open your ears.  

Listen. 

The red-winged blackbird.  The lawnmower.  The crop-duster on its saddleback flight.  Hear the breeze paint the leaves with soft rustles. 

Visit the lake.  Laughter of children.  Motorboat engines.  The sound of splashes on the water.  Muscle cars with sub-woofers instead of seats.  Flip flops on hot pavement.  Paddle drips of a lazy canoe.

Gather around the campfire.  Popping of hot timber, low voices, hushed restraint of guitar.  Smooth call of the owl and ongoing accompaniment of the cricket.

TASTE

Ahhh!  Fruit with all the juiciness and flavor it can hold!  Strawberries red all-through!  Watermelon smiles!  In summer, hot-dogs are eaten the only way they should be – smoked and charred. And nothing beats the crinkle and ooze of a flambéed marshmallow, sticking to your fingers as you make that most magical campfire delicacy. 

On a hot, oh-so-hot, day, the sweet cold of a drink in a glass dripping with condensation. 

Fresh snap peas off the vine.  And the king of summer refreshment – it’s not just a food: it is memories and childhood and hopes and dreams and happiness and SUMMERTIME all scooped and overflowing into a waffle cone.  Crème de la crème.  Ahhh!

SMELLS

In winter, smells are inside.  Finally open your windows in June and breathe in the heavy fragrance of the lilac, all purples and whites and pinks.  Take a tour downtown and smell the hot tar of a roof repair.  Try and resist the enticing aroma of the mini-donuts at a country fair.  Slather on sunscreen and its companion, bug-spray, the perfumes of summer.  

Smoke lingers on the air, a fine distinction between the forest fire, the campfire, and the rubbish fire. 

 TOUCH

Textures.  Close your eyes, and FEEL.  Gritty, hot, dry sand.  Gritty, cold, wet sand.  Most often, plain old dirt - under your feet, between your toes, woven into the calluses of your heel.  Feet get clean in winter.  Walk the grass with those filthy feet.  Keep your eyes closed.  Feel the grass like a toddler learning to walk, all prickles and tickles and strangeness.  Softly touch a peony, its crushed velvet petal on glossy-leafed stem. 

Feel the hot wind across your face.  Feel the heat of a wakeful night in a hot room on hot sheets, the fan passing hot air over your body every 1-2-3-4-5 seconds.  And on that rarest of prairie nights, when it stays warm, and the rain falls easy, open your arms and turn your face up and – eyes closed – feel the warm drops yield to your skin.  

Gifts heaped upon gifts, because it pleased the Giver.