There is something special about summer – the heat, the breeze from the ocean, from the mountains, the smells. Walking barefoot. Today it was 35 degrees outside, humid. You have to be careful about not getting heatstroke this time of the year, so we try to keep awareness of the need for hydration and the risk of exhaustion, always present in our life. It really is on the too hot side to go outside but as it was I could not stop myself from a little outing late afternoon, in the shade of the trees covering the mountain side.
It is so easy to feel the world when the temperature is on the extreme side. Those spring and autumn days when the temperature is almost too perfect so that you do not even realize where your skin starts and the world outside of you begins – a summer day like this is quite the opposite. Summer makes it easy to feel the world, and the world makes it easy to experience your body. As soon as you open the door you become aware of every part of yourself, and every sensation seems accentuated by the heat. The way you breathe. How the skin on your cheeks feel the heat emitted from the road. You notice parts of yourself you normally ignore, just take for granted.
There are big tall pine trees growing maybe 30 meters from our house, and they offer a very nice shade from the afternoon sun. But more than that, they smell wonderfully. To say that I look forward to taking the trash out in the evening, is not something I would have anticipated when moving here. But that has become the case. After sunset, when the heat has left and the warm summer night has started, when the relative dryness of day has been replaced by the humid evening air, the smells from nature around us open up in the night just like flowers do in the morning at dawn. And taking out the trash, the warm smell of the pine trees fill the night, making me wanting to not go inside.
The other night when I was savoring the smell of warm pine trees, I saw another nocturnal creature on the road a bit away. A wild boar stood there, looking at me, before continuing into the forest. Life is actually full of those little moments, but I sense I miss too many of them on a normal busy day – somehow it is easier to catch the small moments of life a hot day like this, when everyday life seems a bit out of the ordinary. More about our everyday summer life next time.