Summer Memories  –  See. Perceive. Act.

Talk of summer, former procrastinators, prompts me to recall favorite memories from childhood. Maybe my recollections will prompt yours and also prompt “spin off ideas” that you can use in the next few weeks.  Don’t wait to implement your ideas.  Summer days slip by faster than others. 

The best feeling was not having to do anything for a large space of time.  Just being free.

Riding my bicycle all over our end of town.

Riding my bicycle to the library.  Wandering the aisles looking for fun books.  Stepping carefully up the creaky stairs to the second floor for more serious books.

Sitting on the grass with my back propped against a pine tree reading those books.

Swimming.  And scary swimming lessons.  Coming home famished, eating tuna sandwiches on the back porch. 

Playing in the hose, spraying other kids, being sprayed, squealing and running.

Playing kick ball with the neighborhood in our front yard.

Putting on plays we wrote, costumes, practices.  Then finally performing for our parents.

Selling lemonade from our stand set up in the back yard next to the neighbor’s new house because that’s where the workmen were.

Playing in the creek, catching minnows, watching crawfish burrow in to make tiny bubbly hills, building dams to see how deep we could make the water.  Running from snakes.

Sitting around a campfire with our family and friends, listening to the adults tell stories on each other, feeling privileged to hear and to laugh with them.

Playing dolls with my cousins, building huge houses out of encyclopedias that spread over the whole living room floor.

Cutting up hill through the woods to my cousin’s house.  Building forts out of pine straw.  Scratching from the chigger bites.

Eating meals outside on the picnic table after Daddy grilled burgers or pancakes that took so long we’d have eaten anything.

Playing in the tree house Daddy built to replace the unsafe ones my brothers built.  Pulling up the rope ladder so little kids wouldn’t try to climb up and get hurt.  Eating pb and j sandwiches up there, sleeping up there overnight.

Taking a bath and going back outside after supper.  Mother shouting, “Don’t roll in the grass!”  (Now who would do that?)

Playing chase games in our front yard.  Kids would come to the door and ask, “Can your dad come out and play?”  Daddy was the only dad-monster who played with us. We’d skip around the yard and he’d come roaring out to catch his “victims” while we ran and screamed. 

Two things strike me:  1)  We had the time and freedom to do nothing or to create our fun.  It wasn’t planned and organized for us. 2)  Simple things made wonderful memories.  We didn’t have to have “special events.”  We just enjoyed what we did. 

See summer as an opportunity.  Perceive the value of freedom and creativity.  Act with confidence to let yourself and your family make simple fun.

How will you facilitate simple fun?