Summer Hours

nurture

Jun 16

Summer hours. When shops open a bit later, close a little earlier. When cotton shirtsleeves and summer dresses are preferred over ties and business suits. When schedules, expectations, plans - all sorts of things - are adjusted, loosened a little, so the linger is longer over dinners, over conversation, over a good book. Or perhaps the linger is found in extended moments in bed, tea in hand, taking in the art of early morning sunlight and leaf-fluttering shadows playing across the walls.

Living well is this. It's placing value in pauses. It's finding worth in white space. It's fewer, better choices. It's fewer, better words. It's fewer, better things. Here is where the energy comes, where the restoration is found, where the purpose lies. When chosen, the keeping of a season of summer hours could very well become our greatest accomplishment. An accomplishment the precision of which could never be reached in the presence of a stiff-armed task master or staunch to do list.

It's not caution-to-the-wind, or lazy, or happenstance, though. It's intentional, purposeful, and thoughtful. It's making room for finding you.

Surely, most of us haven't the luxury to stretch a banner of Summer Hours across the entirety of our lives, but could we wave a flag over one area? How about two? Perhaps even three? Just for a season, a change to a more casual cadence.

Yes.

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In the spirit of this post, I'll be in my cotton sundress, enjoying summer hours here on the blog, posting once-a-week thoughts on living well. Inspiration will land in your inbox every midweek.