QUARTERLY MIX: SUMMER
seasonal playlist (a real banger) + recipe #3 (kind of)
I BOUGHT STAMPS AND THEN I NEVER WROTE YOU A LETTER
How ‘bout we don’t spend this summer try'n to be hot?
How ‘bout we spend it in the full-to-bursting pauses
The in-between irrelevance
that I began to notice
as I went through my home video footageof nothing in particular
everything I would have forgotten
which is everything
that feels
how I want this summer to feel
I don’t want it turned into the posture of promo
I want to sip, and glisten,
and inhale it slowly
and assuredly.
Like I am not afraid of time running out
Like I am not afraid of the airport
with all its barricaded desperations
and robotic bars
and transient, accepted, intensities.
Like I am not afraid of
The bank account
The loose ends
The indescribable
Everything becomes nicer when I don’t try to shut it out
to temper it to my tastes
or make it something closer to
My Design
I am not afraid to notice
the people around me
Because it turns out everyone - mostly - is kind
Everyone becomes sweet (and kind of brave)
as they go about their day
with no idea
that they have just restored
my faith
in everything.
Winter and Spring’s recipes came to me easily. But after weeks of efforting to think of what to share for Summer, I realized that it wasn’t coming naturally because it’s the one season that I don’t really associate with being in the kitchen — for me, this time of year is pleached with long days spent mostly outdoors, with “meals” whittled down to fruit picked straight from the tree (or market stand), and perhaps a few olives at aperitivo. Of course I love the communal “gathering together” energy of summer days; long languorous lunches around a shade-dappled table, but again, I don’t picture myself being the one to prepare, cook, or serve anything. Ideally, we are all hazily hydrating atop some wonky-floored taverna terrace, barefoot, snacking on ice-cold salads, hot grilled fish, and mini chocolate magnums from the help-yourself freezer by the bar.
My idea of Summer perfection is a juicy paraguay, eaten immediately after swimming in cool sea, whilst sitting in crispy heat on a sun-warmed sarong; skin sparkling and salt crystals dripping from hair on to lips. Maybe I’ll have a Camel Blue, maybe I won’t. I like it when the option is there.
Summer is more about being than conjuring. While the darker months lend themselves to ingenuity and imagination, these longer, brighter days invite a kind of dumb contentment — and I mean dumb in a welcome way. There is less need for searching, less motivation for analytical investigation. A sort of surrender to the simplicity of what is already available.