Summer Romance: Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day?

                      Image credit: field-of-sunflowers by geargodz / 123RF Stock Photo


Summer is winding to a close. Soon we'll all be sending kids off to school, planning fall football parties or plotting the fall craft show circuits. Soon the nights will get colder. The frost will come, and the flowers will go dormant. The leaves will fall. All the beauty surrounding us in this moment, the flowers, the warm, lazy days filled with sunshine will end.

My advice: Stop what you are doing today for a few brief moments. Just stop. Yes, today. Just take time to savor the wonders of the season before it is over. Have your own personal love affair--with Summer.

Image credit: fresh-raspberries by patrickrp / 123RF Stock Photo

We're all busy, too busy these days. Even vacations become hectic marathons. We have to get to the hotel by this time or lose the reservation.... we have to attend that wedding, family reunion, birthday party so we hurry through summer......hurry.....hurry......hurry.

Well, stop it, please? Give yourself a little time to embrace in the serene beauty of summertime.

White Admiral butterfly on Echineaca, by Lily Silver

Remember the scent of freshly cut hayfields. take time to listen to the sound of crickets chirping beneath the steps, songbirds singing before they migrate to other regions. Hear the wind rustling the trees. Cherish the sight of a butterfly flitting through the garden, alighting on flowers. Savor the taste of cool, tart lemonade, sweet hand picked berries and farm market produce. If you live near a beach, take one last trip to wade through the swirling waves and get wet, cool sand between your toes. Soak up the warm sunshine, and just breathe. That's right. Just breathe.  Relax, savor the last few days of August before the hectic return to school year schedules and obligations.

Image credit: young-girl-relaxing-on-beach by volare2004 / 123RF Stock Photo

 Shakespeare sums it up pretty well in Sonnet 18: Summer is fleeting. It's lovely, but it has an expiration date. So embrace Summer. Love it, cherish it. Store up memories of her sweetness until she returns again. Have a brief fling with the lovely Golden Goddess before she's gone. Whether you like the English Bard or not, take time to savor the wonder of summertime, quickly, today . . . before summer's lease expires . .

 "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate; 
Rough winds to shake the darling buds of May, 
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, 
And often in his gold complexion dimm'd; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,  
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death Brag thou wander'st in his shade, 

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 

     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

                 William Shakespeare

Image credit: duskbabe / 123RF Stock Photo

Sunflowers, waves and warm, liquid golden sunsets. Take a moment to enjoy the Romance of Summer. 

Oconto Harbor at Sunset, Lily Silver, 2011