Summer is the season that reminds us to come alive

Welcome to the start of summer! Now slow down.

You don’t want to miss anything by hurrying past it. And there is no need to sweat even more, unless you’re also having fun while doing it.

That’s the wisdom of summer. It teaches us to be fully awake, engaged and open to everything around us. It’s about being outside, whether on populated streets or deep in nature.

It’s the season for relaxing and the pursuit of happiness (a phrase immortalized one summer nearly 250 Fourth of Julys ago).

And if there was a summer in our lifetimes that felt extra freeing, it’s this one, as we emerge from our state of pandemic hibernation in the United States, squinting into the brightness of a new dawn.

So get out! Go camping, or at least spend the day in the woods. Savor cherries, peaches, watermelon, funnel cake and ice cream. Gulp lemonade. Get wet, see an outdoor performance or two, watch movies and thunderstorms, enjoy books with scant literary merit just for the guilty pleasure of it.

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