Adieu To Summer

Summer 2014 from Christine Halliday on Vimeo.

There’s just something about summer. It’s intoxicating to everyone, with the longer days that seem to give you more time with the ones you love, the warm sun and gentle breezes that call you outdoors with your dinner plate, or the book you’re reading, or a blanket and a loved one. The wedding invites start coming in, the backyard smells of smokey goodness, the streets come alive with the sounds of kids playing and laughing and memory-making. I love lakes and mountains and Green, I love sea and salt and sand, I love making dinner reservations on Tuesdays, and spur of the moment day trips on Thursdays. I love summer! I love the way the sun feels on my shoulders, I love the way kisses are saltier, freckles are more plentiful, friends stay longer, and the suitcase is hardly unpacked before you pack it up again. As much as I LOVE my job, I do love my time off to really plug in to the rest of my life for a while. I love the clean break, the gentle melancholy that always accompanies the end of a school year. I love feeling spent, like I’ve truly laid it all out and given the year, and that class all that could until the very last bell. I love the sense of renewal I feel a few weeks into vacation, when I break my rule to “stay away from school related material” and start pinning teaching ideas on pinterest, or reading educational blogs and reaching out to my colleague-friends (also known as the FRAMCO) to toss around ideas for the new school year coming. I love the freedom that summer provides me to really think through and reinvent aspects of my craft, and reflect on what works well and what needs refining.
I’ve been told that I “do summer” pretty well, and because I’m very intentional about how I spend my summers, I’m apt to agree. I have learned a lot about balance in the last decade of my life and I apply those lessons to summer as well as to the rest of the year. I allow myself the break from “work life” to accept the soul-nurturing and renewal that comes for me, when I have time with the people I love, a little adventure, some lazy mornings and freedom from commitments, and the chance to reflect on the kind of teacher that I am compared to the teacher I want to be.
At the end of each summer, I feel excited and rejuvenated, and ready for a new school year. I AM a girl who needs closure though, so just like I make a video to mark the end of each school year, before I can move on to summer, I also annually make a video compilation of my summer, to enjoy when the weather gets cold and I need to dig into the “invincible summer” within me to keep me warm and energized. What strikes and humbles me every year though, is how incredibly blessed I am to have found a job that nurtures my passion and ignites my soul so that despite incredible summers, I’m always ready and excited to begin a new school year! #LongLiveSummer and all that it stands for!