to summer

I know there are many people who are not good with leisure time--either it's too much freedom and they don't know what to do with it and end up doing nothing, or they try to do too much and it ends up being more stress than leisure. I am not one of those people. Give me leisure time and I will put it to use. In the best possible way. For me, anyway.

Nowhere is this more evident than summer. When school ends, two and a half months of unstructured time loom before me--and it's absolutely awesome. It's time to run and bike and read and write and explore and volunteer and be outside and eat a whole shit-ton of fresh, farmer's market fruits and veggies (I'm not kidding. Yesterday I singlehandedly and in one sitting consumed an entire pint of fresh-picked blueberries that I bought, maybe 50 miles into a bike ride, from some dude on the side of the road.) I always feel more like me during summer: more relaxed, more happy, more creative, more responsive to friends. Not that I'm not me for the rest of the year, I mean, but summer feels like me with no constraints. Or at least, only constraints that I myself have created.

I mean, I'd like to think that any constraints--not just those in the summer--are only self-imposed, that I can choose to ignore or work around anything that employer, friend, society, whatever would ask of me if I don't agree with it. But it's so much easier in the summer, when the responsibilities are few and there's so much more time to be creative with them.

I love summer.

So all that to say that tomorrow, I'm off to Alaska. I don't imagine I'll have much in the way of internet or phone, which is kind of what I want (though a direct line to james would be nice), so I'll be catching up with all of you come the end of july when I'm back. Enjoy! And do me a favor and go play in the sun--it'll make you happy:)