Remember Summer? Hereʼs a Refresher.
The promise and possibility of a warmer season feel dreadfully foreign in freezing temps. But it's still within reach.
Published
To get from Bulgaria to Limnos, a picturesque Greek island in the Aegean sea, you need to drive 4-5 hours, go through a border crossing point, keep driving to Kavala, and then board a ferry for another 4 hours until you see paradise in front of you.
My week before the holiday slowly teased my arrival. Before leaving for the much-anticipated holiday, I finished rehearsals for a dance performance, packed my bags, charged my electronics and filed my taxes. I tidied our apartment. Okay, my boyfriend made me do that one. I even replaced the battery on my iPhone before its inevitable demise. I caught myself daydreaming about Greece at least a dozen times a day, already visualizing the first sun rays on my skin.
It would be hot but not scorching. I would stroll in the sun in a black speedo and gold-rimmed sunglasses and bask in the beauty of the beach, a minute away from our room. I would carry my towel and several books to choose from in a rustic chic tote bag, a PR gift from Tommy Hilfiger, sturdy and functional with thick straps and an inside pocket. The off-white tote made me feel like a real Real Housewife on a season finale. Ever since I got the bag as a gift, I thought it would be the perfect beach accessory for a full month of reading and tanning.
There is something about summer that made me lighter, more forgiving, and more indulgent in my whims and desires. After Coffeegate, it felt therapeutic to give reign to my messy tendencies in the summer heat. I was ready to relax and devour delicious food with Dyonysian abandon. I wore the most random pieces of clothing that shouldn’t and didn’t work well together. I sat around and procrastinated because the hot weather warranted a nap and catching up on movies.
Joan Didion says: “Summer is, after all, the season of escape: the landscape in which to contemplate, alone, our failures and our possibilities; the safety valve, the frontier that none of us wants—or can afford—to see closed."
When most of us travel for vacation, it slows down life just enough to indulge in the contemplation that Didion writes about. Surrounded by beautiful views, we can’t help but reminisce about our desires. But how come summer is the season that most readily transforms these thoughts into adventures and, well, debauchery?
Amanda Barnier, an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at Macquarie University, researching autobiographical and collective memory, and Celia Harris, Senior Research Fellow at The MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University, write that we remember our youth as a time of hedonism and abandon. They make a case about how our selective memory favors highly emotionally charged and exciting events such as big parties, first kisses, and fun in the sun.
We place importance on those early positive experiences that bring back the nostalgia of connecting with friends, feeling free and unbothered. On our memory shelf, these memories are some of the most valuable ones because of a phenomenon Barnier and Harris call “the reminiscence bump”, which outlines that we are likely to remember more moments from our teenage and early adult years than from other eras in our lives.
Most of those hedonistic memories are often formed in the hot, languid days of past summers, with time to waste galore. And when time is to be wasted, it is a rule that debauchery will waste it. It’s no wonder summer and our chaotic side make the perfect vacation fling.
The hedonism of a messy summer has the power to take us back to a time of lesser responsibilities, where we didn’t have to worry about the mundane troubles of having a job or being “successful” in our field, whatever it may mean. Tapping into our chaotic side feels like a portal into our youth that is both familiar and exciting.
Even back in the city after the holiday, I found myself more adventurous, ready to take things as they come. Carrying on in the cold, I still try to hold on to that sunny, devilish summer spark.
So what do you do with this information? Kiss the guy and ruin your tote bag (or life). Dream of a summer of sloppy mistakes. Remember the promise of summer, even in the dead of winter. And know that it will always come again.
