The house is full of summer — I can tell by the way the late afternoon sun cunningly filters in through the blinds and craftily redesigns the keeping room and by the way the yellow squash, cucumbers and melons conceal my kitchen counter while an heirloom tomato ripens on the kitchen window sill, waiting to be part of a late afternoon sandwich. I see the changes in the night sky as I wait for the summer solace right before midnight on the 20th. 

The June bugs fly around the porch light and the cicadas call in the middle of the day when the heat is deep and the trees are still, searching for their mates. There’s a scattering of unfinished books on sofas and chairs and window sills and the laundry room is harnessed. Banana bread is in the oven, fresh coffee brews two times a day, my studio smells like turps and oils and my head is filled with possibilities. I love June.

I am beginning to see the “people of summer” during this first week of June also. There are moms in grocery stores with small children in tow wanting everything and pre-adolescent little girls perfectly groomed alongside and happy to just be out and about even if it is just the grocery store. They remind me of my own and those long days of summer … searching for things to do but yet enjoying the endless stretch of the unadulterated day. 

There are people on bikes along the main roads in town and people walking on the country roads between here and Loreauville. These, I declare, are the beautiful “people of summer.”

We are different in summer. I haven’t figured out exactly why but everything is altered when June begins. The air is heavy but the atmosphere is lighter as the hot sun puts straw hats on our heads and sandals on our feet and we move around to a different more spirited rhythm.

The Lassalle Gas truck pulled up on a sultry summer morning recently to fill up the propane tank — fuel for the kitchen stove and perhaps something for a summer BBQ later when the summer gets deeper and the afternoons longer. James and Skip casually talked about our bees and chickens while the tank filled. I took note of this, this moment in June when we stop a bit and talk about tomatoes and things that matter. Soon, I will hear and see the mosquito truck that rides through our little neighborhood at dusk when I am in the summer garden picking cucumbers and fretting over weeds and stink bugs. That sound we all know, that buzz through the humid air that, as toxic as its mission is, still stirs cozy thoughts of yesterdays. Funny.

In early July, there will be huge tents with fireworks and symbols of patriotism and the weather here will be hot. By then, we will think it is time for the beach and our gardens will be taken over by bugs and weeds with only the tall woody stalks of the okra remaining. And I will go with my knife diligently each summer morning cutting pods of this African vegetable thinking about how it will appear on our supper table and hoping to find a ripe tomato or two to slice alongside of it…and freezing some for winter gumbos of course. I embrace these moments these rituals we are so blessed to have here in the very Deep South. I hope you can put your troubles aside now and then to capture these moments that will sustain you and our culture, these moments that matter, moments that last, more than any “thing” you want or have.

I planted sunflowers in the middle of my garden this year because I read one of Helen Keller’s quotes … ‘Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It’s what the sunflowers do.”

I hope you take the time to enjoy this lovely month of June.

PAM SHENSKY is a wife, mom to five and blogs at www.pamshensky.com.