My wife’s computer tells her, that a year ago today, we had a water fight in the back garden with the kids to keep cool! Ah… summer!
It may not be hot and sticky and Aldi may not be piling up the Pimms alternatives – we may not be waxing the surfboard or de-crusting the barbecue grill – but it is still summer.
Yes, I do love an Andalusian summer, I love a Greek garlicky feta cheese grilled to perfection, and I love the bluest of blue skies; I was brought up with them in Mount’s Bay. But, I am a firm believer that; although our worldview has been enchanted with greener grass in the summer, and the lure of a better life when it’s sunny or sodden with supposed doom of a damp grey sky; life is still good.
Even if clouds obscure the scorching sun from view and a cold breeze is all we feel – we are alive, life can be good, and peace is but a breath away… #perspective #hopes #expectations. Yes, also there is the crap in life – it’s not fair – it truly is hard to understand – disease, injustice and ignorance is real, and there are nasty attitudes out there where people seemingly don’t give a fig for anyone but themselves.
I left an upbringing in Cornwall in the late 1992 and have always searched for a replacement for the Cornish ‘contentment’, the peace of a flat sea, the endless horizon of Mount’s bay, an alternative to the bluest blue sky that St. Ives nestles under. I have always sought a comforting alternative to the rugged Cornish summer, with hot granite, and fertile bracken, fish, ice-cream, sand, sea, and essential energy…
Since then, I have found similar in places like Cyprus, Nice, Thassos, La Rochelle, Andalucia, and even Tunisia and Lanzarote. But, I have also found this ‘peace’ in Crewe, Wales, Bradford and Leicester.
It’s not easy when so much of our culture points to what we must have, find or master next, to gain satisfaction. It really is not easy, when we have been con-scripted as consumers to at least take part in the game to survive.
Be it summer or not, the energies of life, and the glimpses of peace that we may have been fortunate to feel on our faces should be valued and carried with us. Everywhere you go, take a little weather with you – if you can.
On a different, but not entirely unrelated tack – I have composed three artworks, fueled by my recent reflections of the ‘natural’, to put forward for a local summer display:
Have a great summer!
Jules P Richards 