June Newsletter

Hi June - you can’t know how much I love you.

This month is tender to me. It’s honey-soaked long days in the sun, evenings in the hazy warmth of a cooling sky. Swimming in the ocean after a long day of work and sleeping in on a Saturday before meeting friends for coffee. It feels like reading a juicy summer romcom on the beach. June is long dresses and bare feet, freckles on your shoulders. It’s finishing a book in one sitting. It’s hosting movie night. It’s ice cream for dinner two nights a week. It’s fresh flowers in the vase in your room and kicking the sheets off when you get too hot. It’s rolling the windows down and listening to Tim McGraw by Taylor Swift. It’s playing cards all night long. It’s perfectly red watermelon. It’s lining up seashells on your porch. It’s old chipped mugs, dance parties, tangled hair, and the color blue.

I love this month deeply as a summer girl. It’s the month of Father’s Day, my momma’s birthday, my parents’ anniversary, and the official start to summer. What could be better? As we wind down our time in Summerhouse, all I want is a summer of play and of fun with all the people I love best.

Is that too much to ask?

Summer Heart:

There is beauty in this season

& in the heart of our summer girl

Her golden jewelry glints in the sun as she floats in the ocean

Everything is bright & hazy & blinding

The sun

& the way she just shines

She is all Light-

Goodness overflowing out of her like the sunsets she chases

She is all Love-

Pure and wholesome like the books she devours on the sand, day after day

When the little moon finally comes out to play, you will find her with a glass of champagne

Or throwing dinner parties where everyone is invited & no one is a stranger

She may even be sleeping hard on sheets the color of grass

But it’s only because she gets up with the sun

& starts her day with coffee & the lull of the waves

You may know her by the love notes she leaves behind her

Or by her laugh--uninhibited & infectious

One day I’ll write a story about her

My protagonist

Who is fierce & fun & free

She’ll break your heart a million ways to Sunday

But you’ll love her anyway

But for now I’ll leave her to be

Laying in the grass & dreaming of the beach

(an old poem I wrote about my sister - a true summer girl, through and through)

Like everyone else in the world, recently I have devoured:

• Off Campus (tv show) (perfect) (living rent-free in my head) (based off Elle Kennedy’s book series - also love)

• Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden (book) (sickening) (beautiful writing) (living rent-free in my head)

• Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide (album) (perfect in every way) (the LYRICS!!)

• Gracie Abram’s Hit the Wall (song) (epic) (scream in the car)

• Maisie Peter’s Floresence (album) (I specifically really love Old Fashioned and Vampire Time) (we are so back)

• Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune (book) (amazing summer romcom vibe) (play Ruin the Friendship)

I also cannot wait for the upcoming TV adaptation of Carley Fortune’s “Every Summer After.”

I was thinking about how much art I have recently felt like was life-saving to me AND how much art I know is coming down the pipeline. If everyone is investing in these same things and feeling moved by them - what better sign can we ask for?

Support art. It’s the best thing!

Cheers to having the summer you’ve always dreamed about.

XO

Emma

“She looks sweet, with those dresses and that smile, but Bee is tough. Tougher than she thinks. She hates fighting, but she won’t stand down when it matters. It’s one of the things I admire most about her. I used to wish that we had met earlier in life, when we were kids or teenagers, but now I think we found each other at the right time. We became adults together. Our friendship is how I learned to compromise. It’s how I learned that the families we make are as significant as the ones we’re born into. It’s how I learned that the greatest loves are not always romances.”
― Carley Fortune, This Summer Will Be Different