The days grow long and languid, and spring memories are still strong. Spring was the season of travel and lightness, writing routines and consuming books. Island hopping around northern Raja Ampat, spending as much time in water as on land. Allowing the darkness of the previous year (and even years prior) to unstick and flow through me into the ocean where it dissolves. Coming away from that trip, the difference in my body and mind was palpable. As though I stepped onto those islands as one person, but came away a lighter version of myself. The epitome of spring.
Spring reflects an opening, a blossoming, moving into the fullest expression. Then a pause, culminating at the solstice, the longest day, the beginning of summer--living in daylight, shining a spotlight on all things hidden--the good, the bad, and everything in-between.
And sometimes the fullest expression of what comes forward may not be the sweetest or the lightest as summer can hold a heaviness too--the heaviness of heat and humidity, of monsoon rains and winds, of scorching, cloudless sky, sunburns and sticky skin. I think of driving through eastern California, brushing against Death Valley, uncontrollable forest fires, and crowded beaches. A time of year I want to hide from. But I also think of starry Wyoming skies, fierce thunderstorms, and wide open spaces. Turning my face toward the sun, allowing it to radiate and nourish me. Allowing in all the magic the solstice can bring and the summer days that follow.
This year my summer days are filled with swimming and reading in the sun. When it comes to summer reading, many people recommend lighter reading, beach reads. Perhaps to alleviate the heaviness and heat. But I'm going to go in the opposite direction. I'm going to recommend books that lean into heaviness, the weight of summer, the way tropical humidity or desert dryness can't be lifted. And when something heavy can't be lifted, the only way through it is to lean in and sink until you come out the other side.
Books that lean into summertime heaviness so far the only way out is to sink into them:
The Beach by Alex Garland 🏝️
If you like your beach reads full of mental unraveling, hallucinations, and nightmarish utopias, this is your book. Apocalypse Now meets Lord of the Flies. It will make you think twice about seeking paradise on a far flung deserted, tropical island. The center cannot hold. It never does.
The Lightness by Emily Temple ☸️
Like Dark Academia, but for Tibetan Buddhists. When Olivia takes off in search of her missing father at a remote monastery, she ends up at a summer Buddhist retreat for teenaged girls where she joins a secret group intent to harness the power to levitate. What could go wrong?
A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit 💫
A meditative exploration on the meaning of lost--getting lost, losing things, the familiar falling away. Can we lose something we never knew we had to begin with? Can we find something that we don't know exists? A meandering journey toward the unreachable, distant blue of the horizon.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver ⛪
An American southern Baptist missionary family moves to the Congo (circa 1960) and pushes their religion and ways of life into the village and onto people of the area. Insanity ensues. The story spans from their arrival through the devastating aftermath of it all.
As we sit here at the far edge of earth's tilt and pause, do you surrender to the lightness or to the heaviness?
What is on your list to read this summer? Do the stories you read move you toward the airy, lightness of summer or the weight of its heaviness?
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