On Summer

Summer has always belonged to children. Even as adults, there’s something in our DNA, somewhere deep inside us, buried beneath the endless obligations of modern American life. If you have kids, the last school bell rings in June, and something changes. I still love that, for 70ish days, a Monday isn’t met with dread, and fireflies and sprinklers matter more than obligation for enough people in my house to completely change the vibe from Captain Von Trapp to Jeff Spiccoli.

The magic isn’t about family vacations and expensive adventures, necessarily. Most summers aren’t built on postcard moments. They’re built on ordinary days that somehow become unforgettable. A swimming pool after dinner. A trampoline until dusk. Smores. Sticky fingers. Wet towels draped over deck railings. The smell of sunscreen mixed with fresh-cut grass. Side note: I once stood behind Alice Cooper in line at a Starbucks and wanted to ask about School’s Out, but it was 0530 in the morning and I wussed out.

I often think of time in terms of productivity. What needs fixing? What needs earning? What comes next? But children don’t. Summer reminds them, and, thankfully, us, that some of the best days are measured by nothing more than how many consecutive days without a shower and how many hot dogs you have eaten and just how long you can be under the pink skies.

One of the gifts of fatherhood is getting to experience that wonder again (in addition to eating chicken nuggets and Fruit Roll-Ups). It’s there again for you. Just like Christmas and the first snow. I don’t wake up excited because I have ten weeks off from school, I’m just down in my chair, sipping coffee, writing this because the windows are open, the light is still gray, and who cares if the numbers on the clock are obscene to anyone else? It’s good. It’s peak. It’s wonderful. The slow bliss. Suddenly, cereal isn’t just breakfast. It’s eaten on the porch while nobody is rushing to catch a bus. Maybe I’ll go to that Zoom meeting, maybe I’m cough, cough sorry, so sick.

Summer changes the rhythm of family life. The urgency softens. There is time to decide whether today is a lake day, a trip to the town pool, a baseball day, or simply a day to wander through the woods looking for frogs. Friends appear on bicycles without texting first. Neighborhood kids migrate from yard to yard. Evenings aren’t something to survive; the fridge has Pilsners, not IPA’s.

Then there are the traditions that arrive almost unnoticed until you’re the parent creating them. Sparklers glowing in small hands. Popsicles melting faster than they’re eaten. Fireflies caught gently in cupped palms before being released again. Fishing trips where the conversation matters far more than the fish. The first cannonball into cold water. The annual debate over who can build the biggest sandcastle. These moments seem almost insignificant while they’re happening but they become the memories our children carry into adulthood.

What kind of sprinkler did you have? Did you jump through it? Or over it?

I’ve started wondering what summer will feel like when my children are grown.

July will come, just as it always has. The weather as warm as it gets. The school buses disappearing. Neighborhood pools are opening. But will I feel that different season? I hope I will. The navy wasn’t rhythmic like this, but medicine was. Too many doctors have kids for the meetings to be about anything other than patient care. Gone is the fluff.

When the kids leave, well, I haven’t crossed that bridge yet. It will suck if the summer itself changes. No towels scattered across the floor. No screaming over who gets the last popsicle. No bug spray smell, or less of it anyway.

That realization makes these summers feel even more precious.

Fatherhood has taught me that the things we work so hard for matter. Providing for a family matters. Saving for college matters. Band-Aid placement on questionable injuries matters. But summer sets you straight about one thing: life isn’t just duty, there are roses to smell.

Children understand this instinctively, and I feel grateful that my children allow me to borrow their perspective for a little while longer. Through them, summer regains its magic, just like Christmas does, or the first snowfall, or for us in Vermont: the first spoon of maple syrup from our grove. In summer, the days feel longer, not just because the sun stays up later, but because we fill them with moments that remind us what we’re working toward in the first place.

Summer never really leaves you. It simply changes hands. It’s someone else’s turn to zip off to the river on a bike with a fishing rod and some worms in a plastic cup. It’s someone else’s turn to knock on a friend’s door at 9:15 in the morning, just to come outside and play. But it’s my turn, and it’s my privilege to live them all over again.