07/28/2026
There was a time when summer didn’t need a plan.
There were backyard campouts where nobody actually slept and drive-in movies where half the fun was piling into the car with blankets and snacks. Watching Jaws for the tenth time and somehow convincing yourself there might actually be a shark in the deep end.
Michael Stipe was on to something. To this day, that opening piano from “Nightswimming” can transport me back in an instant. Sneaking into the neighborhood pool felt less like breaking the rules and more like a rite of passage. Floating on your back beneath a sky full of stars, the water impossibly still... the whole world felt different. Time slowed down. Summer felt endless because we weren’t counting the days. We were just living them.
Somewhere along the way, though, we stopped letting moments be enough. Not all at once, but gradually. We’ve trained ourselves to fill every quiet moment with something, anything, and in the process we’ve forgotten how to simply sit where we are.
Presence isn’t something we achieve. It’s something we allow. It happens when we stop asking, “What’s next?” long enough to notice what’s already here. The smell of sunscreen. A neighbor watering tomatoes. The laughter drifting across the pool.
Let’s get better at noticing the little things that quietly become the big things. Maybe that’s the gift of summer. Not that it gives us more time, but that it reminds us we were never missing time at all. We were missing our attention. So here’s to pausing the urge to capture life, and instead letting it happen.
