Officially Summer??

My family spent Memorial Day weekend at our cottage in the Finger Lakes, vacuuming, dusting, mowing, raking, picking up acorns, planting, observing the feral cat’s kittens under our house, and eventually getting out on the boat, at which point I said, “It’s officially ‘summer’.”

My son said, “No, it’s not. It’s not summer until school is over.” I could understand his feeling. After all, we did have to come home early so he could spend six hours of the holiday weekend on his homework. Some holiday, eh?!

Of course, some would say it’s not official until we reach the summer solstice, June 21st. The summer solstice occurs when the sun is in the zenith at the tropic of Cancer, creating the longest day of the year.

But on June 1st when our city reached a record high of ninety-one degrees and even the air conditioning couldn’t keep the humidity at bay, I said, “No, it’s definitely summer.”

So, is it a date, a time, a temperature, or an event that makes it “officially summer” in your mind? When does it feel like “summertime” to you?

Summer

Many years ago, I read a slim little book called A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr. It’s about a World War I soldier hired for the summer to restore an ancient mural in a village church. It’s on the depressing side: none of the characters are on track for a happy life at the last page. But what makes the book memorable is its flawless evocation of summer. So flawless that I’ve read the book more than once—and I’m one of those readers who like escapism and humor. I can’t remember any particular passage, but sitting here at my keyboard I can recall the book’s summer: endless sun, blue skies, the drone of bumblebees, the scents of earth and grass, the feeling that my entire self, body and mind, is in Paradise.

“The Harlequin Tea Set,” an Agatha Christie short story, almost captures summer this way. Liz Michalski’s novel, Evenfall, also has moments of pure summer—eating peaches warm and ripe from the tree, basking in the sun in an overgrown orchard.

I live in the Northeast US—winter lasts a long, long time here. So it’s no surprise that I favor summery books. Even the one sort-of-winter book that I’ve always loved—The Snowstorm by Beryl Netherclift—isn’t really about snow. The title refers to one of those glass balls you shake to make “snow” fly around a scene inside. (There is a real snowstorm at the end, and the book is one of the better time-travel novels I’ve read.) There’s also Robert McCammon’s Swan Song. He creates nuclear winter so well that the first time I read it, I kept looking out the window to make sure the world was still green.

I scanned my bookshelves for a spring book, and found none. I do have a favorite autumn book: The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. That’s it—one book—even though Hallowe’en is my favorite holiday. (That’s a post for another time, and a discussion of movies that scare the pants off you. Love ‘em.)

I love to write in the summer. My laptop screen can’t compete with sunshine, so I take my three-ring binder and fountain pen and sit in my backyard. Grass between my toes, iced tea at my side, red-winged blackbirds (among many others) calling in the trees, and katydids everywhere. Yet I’ve written all different kinds of weather into chapters on those days. I’m weird like that. This is also one of my favorite places to read.

Is there a book on your shelves that epitomizes your favorite season? My TBR pile in only 6 books deep at the moment. It needs to grow—after all, summer’s only a few weeks away.

Why the Finger Lakes?

The Broken Vows mystery series are set in the Finger Lakes region of New York State for two main reasons:

1) It’s a beautiful area, worth recommending.
2) A lot of my happiest days occurred there.

My first book, For Better, For Murder, opens in Wachobe, a fictional town on the region’s western border. With a fictional town I hoped to write whatever I wanted without being corrected or offending anyone. But in the eastern Finger Lakes, Skaneateles hosts a Dickens Christmas that surpasses the Dickens Festival in my book.

In the second book, For Richer, For Danger, my protagonist travels to Canandaigua, where I spent childhood summers camping, swimming, exploring, and riding the carousel in the Roseland Amusement Park which closed in 1985. My family enjoyed the summertime Waterfront Arts Festival and the Canandaigua Art and Music Festival for years and the more recent holiday-time European-inspired Christkindl Market and Festival of Trees.

As kids, when not in Canandaigua, we spent weekends in the western part of the region on a hill above Hemlock Lake, where my grandfather built a cabin on ten acres across the road from his birthplace. We picked blueberries, played games, swam, planted sticks that magically grew into candy, etc.

Nowadays, my family hangs out on Keuka Lake, where it is possible to:

• Buy tasty Mennonite baked goods and gorgeous handmade quilts


• Boat or drive to scenic restaurants and wineries with excellent offerings


• Go fishing, catch nothing, and still come home with a cooler full of fish because friends will share their catch


• Fall off your friend’s jet ski, be unable to climb back on, and have said friend swim out to rescue you, your small child, and the jet ski


• Have a dozen strapping young men appear on cue to carry your newly assembled boat hoist into the water and position it for you (several times) even if they have to stay under water longer than really wise


• Attempt to water ski, wipe out multiple times, and still have your neighbors cheer your success


• Find talented retiree labor when you need help installing drainage ditches, water pumps, wood flooring, etc.


• Swim all day—and not think about the fish, turtle, or snake that lives under your dock


• Relax by the water and have friends float by just to say “hi”

Mind you, I’m not saying all these experiences are mine or my loved ones. I’m just saying the Finger Lakes are a great place to be.

So, what’s your favorite summertime vacation spot? Favorite summer memory?