Spend the summer on self-enhancement, dinners and fun
Making the most of the season means choosing a book over Donald Trump news and Twitter
This is a strange summer.
In climate news, just when you think it’s stopped, here comes the rain again, “falling on my head like a new emotion,” as the Eurythmics sang.
And just this week, on a considerably larger scale of strange, a trillion-tonne iceberg the size of Prince Edward Island broke away from the Antarctic shelf. If we weren’t so distracted, we’d be horrified.
But we are distracted. Like many people, I have disappeared too many times down the sordid rabbit hole of the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia story.
This week provided a high watermark of evidence astonishing and damning in the form of Donald Trump Jr.’s email thread, in which he basically bur- bled “I love it” as he agreed to take a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian emissary who claimed to have damaging evidence on Hillary Clinton.
This has not only led to triumphant cries of “smoking gun” but to the obvious conclusion that Jr. is a moral idiot. Even better, as one tweeter put it, “Who would have thought #TiffanyTrump would be the smart one of the adult Trump children? Outta sight, outta mind.” Apparently, Tiffany, 23, the neglected Trump daughter, has been off in Europe with her boyfriend, as one news site had it, “living her best life.” There is even a BuzzFeed quiz you can take which asks: “Which Trump Child Are You?” Some people now seem pretty pleased when they get Tiffany.
Summer is fleeting in this country, my friends. Summer should be, apart from drive-by gawking at our closest ally’s political distress, a time for fun, for adventure, even for self-enhancement.
A friend, when I ask about her summer self-improvement projects, replies: “What am I not trying to improve?” and sends a list which includes “weight, wellness and dating life.” Another friend, off at her cottage, goes for yoga classes on a dock, which seems divine. Many people I know mention losing weight. Summer is, after all, the bare season. I was astonished to learn, as Chatelaine magazine has pointed out, “a pair of D-cup breasts can weigh between 15 and 23 pounds, the equivalent of carrying around a six-month old baby boy.” And breast size is increasing in North America. Just putting that out there.
I have a summer birthday, so I tend to ask myself around this time, in a reflective kind of way, how I can do better, be better.
Obviously, I have to stop being so distracted by all things Trump on Twitter, difficult if you’re in the news business but necessary if you’re going to lie down on a perfect summer afternoon and read a book just for pleasure. For that purpose, I have already bought Toronto author Barbara Gowdy’s Little Sister and A Great Reckoning by Quebec mystery writer Louise Penny.
This summer, I finally managed, after six months of carrying around a prescription, to find the time and will to get new glasses and sunglasses. A miracle — I can see again. The garden is beautiful.
My next small life-improvement project is to relax each morning with an early coffee in said garden just listening to the birds — they are spectacular this year. Who knows if they will be next year?
Summer is for celebrations. Our extended family just had our first Tinder wedding, a glorious affair at which the bride shimmered in a dress so timeless you could not tell the era — a lovely counterpoint to the fact that the marriage only took place because she electronically swiped right on the dating site.
I had a full house of loved ones for the wedding and it was both wonderful and exhausting as we rolled out dinners and chatted endlessly.
I was not living my best life only a few times, once as my politically engaged mother-in-law, 90, said she wanted to talk about the furor over cultural appropriation. “Not to- night,” I said firmly, preferring to savour a garden dinner amid pleasantries and the soft night air over such a thorny issue.
She returned the move when, another night, I asked her opinion on the Omar Khadr settlement: “Can we do this tomorrow?”
How about relaxed issue-free self-improvement — a toning walk every morning in your neighbourhood? It will never be more lush.
Or pick one relationship that needs attention and do something easy with that person — coffee on a patio, a walk to get the perfect ice cream cone, a stroll along the Beaches boardwalk, which will always be one of my favourite summer in the city destinations.
Dial back the envy. Don’t look any more at those perfect patio party pictures, be they ads or on Facebook, with those umbrella drinks and everyone seemingly having a more beautiful summer life than the rest of us.
Instead, congratulate yourself on every nice dinner you do pull off, every fun outing, every time you exercise outside in a way that makes you feel more vibrant and alive.
If you can’t manage self-improvement, try self-acceptance.
“It’s when you sit on the dock, beach or by the neighbourhood community pool in your bathing suit and say ‘take me just the way I am,’ ” a friend said.
I guess I could also talk cultural appropriation with my mother-inlaw. But maybe I could do so eating ice cream. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson