Must the summer end?

I need more long days where it stays light until ten and it’s warm all day. I need more days where popsicles are the rule and not the exception. I want more days of hanging at the splash park and praying for a gentle breeze from the east as we sit in the grass.

I long for more evenings spent watching baseball games with friends and family and barbeques where we talk for hours. More hikes up Smith Rock and more trail rides out at the Radlands with my kids. More of a lot of things that make our summer what we hope for.

Summer is kind of like every vacation you take where as soon as it’s over you’re already wishing you could have another day, or another week. I suppose the same can be said for nearly any positive experience, but summer is like a 3 month high. Maybe it’s time we extended summer to include parts of May and September, maybe turn the season into four months, or possibly five. Of course, with that philosophy we’ll all be working two days a week and enjoying 5 day weekends before long!

The iconic nature that is summer is found in the hearts and minds of children. It is them who know that each day brings a new chance to play with reckless abandon while having the opportunity to stay up later than usual. That mindset is what makes smiles, and from the moment school lets out my kids are covered in them. Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of what that feels like and poof, I’m a kid again.

As we near another fall and prepare for a new school year I am reminded of the cyclical nature of our lives. The leaves will change, the sweatshirts will be donned, the wind will come and our mindsets will adjust once again. I suppose that it’s good there’s an order because who knows where we would end up if there wasn’t one. But imagine if you could leave the sweatshirt on the shelf for a while longer.

Living in Central Oregon certainly affords us the opportunity to enjoy much more sunshine than our brothers and sisters to the west, but negative eight degrees is still cold, even if the sun is out. Like a “Choose your own adventure” book, I would love the chance to see what a year of summer felt like. A chance to enjoy the warmth that only comes for a couple of months each year.

Maybe it’s time to adjust my mindset to summer and keep it there. I want that feeling of reckless abandon and that perpetual smile that goes along with it and I want it all year long. Like a dog with his head out the window, enjoying the breeze in my face and the sun in my eyes. Indifferent about the destination and focused on the journey; because I know that summer doesn’t end.