I usually experience seasonal depression in July. After July 4th, I feel a downward slide of loneliness, unrealized ideals, lack of desire for homeschool planning, and it’s super hot. This year we planned our beach vacation for the last week of July, and so all month I had something to look forward to! The week at the beach revived me emotionally, filled my heart and soul, and was all that I needed it to be. This is the first time I have walked into August feeling joyful in decades.
Part of it is the release of pressure I feel from the choice not to homeschool this year. I feel a tremendous lightness, hope for a new way of living and being, comforted by sharing the educational responsibility with others. I know God has led us down this path, and now I trust that as we are going, His presence is already there.
I have been a bit obsessed this summer with Cape Cod. The ideal of vintage New England Summers. I have read several fictional beach reads that are set on that stretch of Atlantic coast along with a wonderful memoir called The Big House that my niece gave me for my birthday. Reading about both fictional and real-life homes has a way of inspiring me in ways that quick snapshots on Instagram can’t fulfill. There is something romantic in nature about Summer Homes where families leave behind the city and recreate together for months in a large, rambling house. Houseguests come and go, kids run and play tag, grandma daily swims out to a point and back, shrimp and fish and oysters on repeat, an uncle always seems to win the local tennis tournament. The furnishings get worn after decades, memorabilia accumulates, broken appliances are kept from a sense of thrift, paperbacks pile on shelves, the clock gets wound weekly. There is an ease that comes with sand + surf + sandwiches. Pretension is gone. No one cares about the Joneses. Makeup and curated clothes are left behind. It is a space for family to be themselves in their brokenness, addictions, celebrations, and sorrows. A fixed locale that can cultivate loyalty, rootedness, and meaningful traditions. What I love when I read these stories is that it is usually about dysfunctional people, and yet the sense of place is the calm in their storms. It’s the spot that keeps bringing them back to themselves and to each other.
These homes become pictures to me of sanctuaries. Places of refuge for the broken. In some of the books I read, there is a lighthouse nearby. It shines to lead people from crashing onto the rocks and find safe passage to their homes. I begin to dream of what it looks like to create sanctuary and how I easily go off the rails and make the “rules” or expectations too high, too exhausting. Idealism rooted in perfectionism. But then, there is the joy of accepting what actually is, but dreaming of how to serve it better. My heart is drawn to the steady matriarchs in the books, the ones who make the sandwiches for the outings, the ones who get mental health help, the ones who create silly traditions of lemon hunts and bonfire nights. What does it mean to be a female leader in our families? What do we each uniquely bring with our giftings to create joyful sanctuaries?
A friend of mine and I ordered the Celebrate with Babs cookbook. We are drawn to these strong women who serve holidays meals with grace and ease. They have learned the tricks, where to invest the energy, and we get the joy of emulating what took them decades to learn. I have also been obsessed with The Lost Kitchen series on Magnolia Network via Prime. I read Erin French’s memoir Finding Freedom last year, and was enamored with her creative concept. I now have her cookbook sitting next to me, and look forward to exploring new, delicious dishes this fall now that I will have more margin in my days. I read cookbooks like novels, and if there happens to be a couple recipes that we end up loving and adding to the rotation, then the price of the book was worth it.
I hope your transition from July to August is peaceful, and that you find inspiration for the days you are about to walk into. There is much beauty in the world offered to us, and most of it isn’t on a screen. I pray you experience your people in eye-to-eye, belly-laughing ways, that you see new parts of your unique city, that you explore a new recipe in the kitchen, that a song on Spotify is so rich you play it on repeat again and again, that you experience Sanctuary and cultivate that for others.
Happy Late Summer, Friends!
Aimee