Summer 2024: As Good As It Gets
As good as it gets is the sun breaking through a bank of clouds…bright stars on a dark night…a bug-scattering breeze…maybe a rainbow.
As good as it gets is when a line of cars brakes for ducklings crossing the road…when a country field is a blanket of rippling green and there’s a deer in the middle of it…when daylight generously adds activity time to the summer schedule…
So many small touches to the summer season are as good as it gets, making people feel good about themselves, good about getting out and around, good about living the nature-oriented life, about being near the lakes, the hillsides, the backroads and the trails or about following the sound of music to an outdoor concert, the chatter of children to a playground, the beat of a marching band to a parade.
As good as it gets is the laughter among old summer friends meeting after a winter away, the greetings offered from craft to craft magnified by open water, the polite eye contact among strangers passing on a small-town sidewalk, the long conversations at the post office or under a community signpost and the eavesdropping that leads to delightfully overheard discoveries on places to visit, activities to pursue, ways to while away a summer’s day.
As good as it gets is the influx of summer guests, tourists, vacationers and relatives and the lessons in appreciation of the area they bring with them.
As good as it gets are the small, simple graspable worlds summer allows us to create — worlds defined by a watercraft, a shoreline, a footpath, a golf course, ball field, a garden or a yard.
As good as it gets is no fuel bills, low utility usage, no shoveling and plowing, no slipping and sliding. Bare feet on soft ground, woodpiles that can wait and buying local at a roadside stand or cooler where the money box is on your honor are all as good as it gets.
As good as it gets is finally daring to drive on an unknown country road or to follow an unfamiliar trail, to pass community ball parks ringed by proud parents, to be welcomed by the smell of a building left closed for the winter…
Is there better than good? Sure. There are days so clear that the distant muted mountains absolutely pop out from the horizon, so quiet the song of a single bird carries its message across fields and through trees, so peaceful that all hopes seem possible.
But for everyone who lives for summer in central Maine, who longs to be here, who travels to get here and who has hard-earned time to spend and spends it here every single, simple, small- time, unpredictable but still wonderful day is as good as it gets.
Here’s to enjoying another good summer!
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