summer bucket list
and celebrating summer solstice by being a tourist in my own city
Last year, I made a summer bucket list with the highest of hopes. There would be whimsy and the embodiment of childlike splendor. Ice cream and popsicles. Water balloons and trampolines. That last day of school verve captured in each hopeful activity.
So like any neurotic 30-something, I made a list.
Surely if I spent the time to purchase gel pens just to make the list, I’d put the same amount of energy into actually completing the activities.
Surely….not..
It became another excuse to spend more time on the idea of something, and making that thing look cute and fun, rather than actually putting any energy into the action.
This, amongst many other reasons, was why I’ve had trouble dipping my toe back into the social media pool. And why the intended one month hiatus has extended to more than 3.
Though it wasn’t all hopeless. Out of the 24 listed items listed above, I got through 6 of them.
In any variation of schooling, a grade of 25% would have been a resounding failure, equipped with a ‘SEE ME’ in red, capital letters at the top of the page. But in adulthood, completing a quarter of the activities actually feels quite significant.
I spent a few weekends on the Cape. While there, I savored ice cream and played a round of mini golf.
I perused Cambridge Antique Market and found a print for the bathroom.
I went to Tallship to celebrate a friend’s birthday.
I ate at Gufo in Cambridge.
I shucked oysters on the harbor with EBO & Grocery.
When Mike and I were talking about our “failed” summer bucket list a few weeks back, it felt like we didn’t complete any of it.
Though looking at this array of activities, this feels like enough. MORE than enough. This is actually a glorious array of living in between a work schedule with sometimes so much pressure it feels the foundation may start to crack.
But it’s so much easier to remind myself of what I didn’t do or complete than savoring and appreciating the items I enjoyed.
Realistically, I’d have to do 2-3 of those activities per week in order to get through them all by the end of summer. And frankly that sounds exhausting.
As a tried and true New Englander there’s a tendency to want to cram it all in before the impending shadow of seasonal depression returns - high intensity interval activities between Memorial Day and Labor Day. A race towards the light before jostled back to the underworld of winter.
Summer solstice and summer in general feels like a rushed opportunity to bask in lightness. And I’m entirely romanticized by this idea, especially as of late, after just returning from Paris where the light warms the sky until 10pm.
I felt energized by the light and open schedule, with momentum to spend sun up to sun down walking and exploring. Perhaps this was a result of vacation adrenaline and wanting to make the most of the trip.
It was similar in Copenhagen when the sun also set in double digit nighttime hours, something that feels unimaginable in the Boston area.
Though when the vacation honeymoon ends, I get home, have a few hours to catch my breath, and then find myself back in the wind tunnel of healthcare.
Why can’t I bring travel me back to every day me?? I enthusiastically bemoan upon landing home from the trip.
Well.
I have a schedule of patients to see and other responsibilities - things and people to tend to and care for (an enormous gift!). (And a few new work positions that I’m still feeling not the most confident about).
When traveling, I naturally have more energy. This is partly due to being in places with an abundance of sunlight and getting a proper vitamin D infusion. But also in that often I am managing just my own energy.
I’m not diluting it through screens - checking emails or logging into my epic inbox to triage the urgency of which to respond to results and patient messages.
Or to other people, carefully balancing being thoughtfully present and engaged during patient encounters while trying not to absorb everything like a sponge.
So this year, instead of just making the list and tucking it away in a desk drawer, I want to take a realistic approach to the days getting longer. Choose just a few things that will replenish energy, rather than merely getting excited by the idea of a Lisa Frank inspired, gel-pen decorated catalog of activities.
And not just to plan outward, but to find other ways to foster inward energy, momentum and warmth.
Read on for:
daily, small ways to foster momentum and energy without having to go on vacation
a tip I learned at Kripalu on not absorbing other’s energy
being a tourist in my own city: a one-day itinerary to explore Boston in a quaint, quintessential (and a little cliche) way during summer solstice