You Do Not Have to Make the Most of Summer
There is a version of summer I used to chase. Every weekend had a plan. Every meal was a small event. By September I could hold up a mental photograph of everything we had "made of it" — and still feel, somehow, like I had missed most of it while I was busy making it happen.
I don't chase that version anymore. Not because I stopped caring about beauty — if anything, I care about it more than ever. I just stopped believing that beauty needs to be produced. Some mornings the most beautiful thing in the house is the way light comes low through the kitchen window and lands on whatever is sitting on the counter, unstyled, un-arranged, just there because it's summer and that's where it landed.
This is my invisible rule for the season now: if a thing is already good, I try not to improve it into exhaustion. A ripe tomato doesn't need a recipe. An open window doesn't need a project. An ordinary Tuesday doesn't need to become content. It's allowed to just be a Tuesday.
I think we inherited a strange idea somewhere — that summer is a test we can pass or fail. That if we didn't get to the coast, host the dinner, finish the reading list, our own particular season, we somehow did it wrong. I don't believe that anymore, and I don't think you do either, not really. I think we're just tired of feeling like there's a better version of right now happening somewhere else.
You do not have to make the most of summer. You are allowed to simply have it.
what i'm loving this month
The smell of a kitchen with the windows open before it gets too warm to keep them that way. There's a particular half hour, early, when the air hasn't caught up to the day yet.
Whatever is ripest at the market this week, eaten with almost no effort. Salt, maybe oil, nothing else required.
The quiet stretch after everyone's finished eating but before anyone's cleared the table. Nothing is being accomplished in that stretch. That's exactly why I've started protecting it.
Both of these came out of a stretch of studio days where I wasn't trying to make anything impressive — just useful, and honest about what it's for. The pitcher has an oversized handle because pouring shouldn't be fussy. The bowl looks as good half-empty as it does full, which felt like the right kind of piece for a season that isn't supposed to be performed.
I'm not going to tell you that you need either of them. I'll just say that if something in your kitchen is currently being asked to do more than it can gracefully do — if you're pouring lemonade from something never meant for pouring, or serving from something that only looks right styled — these were made for the actual using, not just the photographing.
Both pieces are handmade to order in my Cary, NC studio — please allow about four weeks. If you'd like one sooner, I'm always happy to talk timing.
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What would it take to let today be enough, exactly as it already is? I'd genuinely love to know what you're loving this July — just reply and tell me one small thing. I read every note.