Hats, hats, and more hats…! With designer Philip Treacy’s hats adorning the royals at the Royal Wedding as well as many of the mannequins at Alexander McQueen’s record-breaking retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hats are what this summer is about. Although I am a fair-skinned gal and my dermatologist (and my colorist as well!) chide me mercilessly to stay away from the sun, wearing a hat because it dresses up an otherwise ordinary summer event is reason enough.
Ode to Place
In summer we find ourselves driving along the sandy roads of our past. The creep of time and population alter these places that call us home: dirt roads are now paved and dotted with new development, shopping malls replace the row of two-room cabins, old homes torn down for duplexes, but despite these changes you go back. Those of us lucky enough to descend from a large sprawling brood, lucky enough to remember when the whole sea-side town part of that extended family, yearn to see what remains of the the old haunts, to hear the old familial laugh, to glean from the next generation of faces those same big eyes or jaw line you knew way back when you tooled around with your gang of cousins going from beach to kitchen to beach to ice cream stand.
July=Dinner Picnic
Lake, ocean or river, no matter, with the heat and humidity of July beating down in oppressive waves, water is the only salvation! My best childhood memories involve family and sand and food and water while the fiery orb finally settles down into the east coast horizon. My mother planned our late-day excursions around a dinner picnic, mostly to include my father, who worked through July at the hospital, but also because we are a fair-skinned bunch and crisp-up pretty easily.
State parks with public beaches basically empty out by 5:00, yet remain open to dusk, which in July means until almost 9:00. But by late afternoon most beach-goes pack up their picnic baskets and portable radios, their water toys and sandy tots, and head back into the still heat of summer evenings. But not us. With 80% of the other folks gone we had miles of beach to ourselves and we splashed and surfed about in the waves like we owned the place before wrapping up in towels and opening the basket of sandwiches. While eating we watched the last golden rays shoot across the blue horizon. Even today I am surprised over how few people do this.
