It is officially summer and the hot weather is upon us. School has come to a close and things will seem to wind down just a touch during these next few months. What will you do differently this time of year to mark the changes in the seasons, where you can enjoy earlier sunrises and later sunsets, longer days of sunshine, and the hot weather bronzing your skin?
I have always said that I enjoy the East Coast because of the clear distinctions in the changing of the four seasons. Autumn in New York is so splendid and magnificent—it’s spawned a series of jazz ballads to celebrate the feeling one gets from strolling through various NYC neighborhoods enjoying the crisp leaves.
The cold, dreary winter months follow and the city begins to darken somewhere around 4 p.m. The cold winds whipping through tall buildings and sometimes blankets of white snow seemingly cover every crevice of the city.
Springtime in New York is filled with buds on trees and weather that can’t decide whether it wants to be an arctic tundra or a balmy afternoon.
These three diverse seasons lead us into summer, where the smells of the city come alive…as do the people. The city is filled with tourists, happy birds, children playing in the streets, men playing cards or dominoes on the sidewalks at night, and a sense of never-ending days and evenings on the stoop. Summer is a time to take stock of how the year has gone thus far and to plan for the next few months of an ever-rapidly moving year. It is a time to shift gears ever so slightly and do something that helps you slow down just a bit.
This summer, my niece and I are enjoying reading her mandatory summer books for school. We just started “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. I try to read more fiction during the summer months, maybe because I take a few days off from work and head to the local NYC beaches. Or maybe it’s because the days have longer hours of sunshine, so I feel like I have more hours in a day to do what I need to do as well as what I want to do. I have already read three novels and am looking forward to reading a few more in the next few weeks. I also hope to explore a few neighborhoods I have never seen in all of my years in NYC.
Whatever it is you plan to do this summer, make sure it is something that makes you feel grateful and fulfilled. I recently heard First Corinthians Baptist Church Pastor Mike Walrond say, “Consistent gratitude leads to unspeakable joy.” Let those words lead you into summer.
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University; author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream”; and the co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC and host of The Blackest Questions podcast at TheGrio.