Permission Slips for a Slow Summer

It’s been a topsy-turvy summer, and I’m finally settling into a pause that is bringing it all into focus. I’ve been watching my children play and hunt for shells with the seriousness of archelogists, taking long lunches under awnings at bistro tables, splitting a bottle of wine with my husband in the middle of the afternoon like we have nowhere to be, because for once we don’t. The colors have felt visceral to me and the tenderness of this season is making it so incredibly vibrant in all of the ways.

A few winters ago I read Wintering, and it rearranged something in me. The idea that seasons are not just weather but permission — that there are times meant for retreat and repair, and that fighting them is how you exhaust yourself. It transformed how I move through the cold months. And it has me asking, this week, from under this awning: what does it actually mean to summer? Not to vacation. To summer, as a verb, as a way of being.

Because these questions do more than feed my own life and my own wellbeing. I've found something quietly beautiful in sharing them, in discovering how many of us are circling the same ones. And they keep me alive creatively, because design, underneath all of it, is about living a beautiful life. It was never really about just the sofa. The more honest I am about how I actually want to live, the more it shows up in what I make and the joy I bring to it. A well-lived season and a well-made room, it turns out, run on the same fuel.

Boredom is not a problem to be solved. It’s the raw material. Every good idea I’ve ever had arrived in an empty hour, and I spent most of my adult life frantically filling those in. The kids know this instinctively. Sit in the nothing long enough and it turns into something.

The good light comes at seven and it does not wait for you to finish your email. Go stand in it anyway. Twenty minutes, no agenda, no step goal. Just be outside and let the day turn gold on you.

Reinstate the popsicle. There’s an entire category of small sensory joy we abandoned around age twelve for absolutely no reason. Sprinklers. Reading on the floor. Dinner outside for no occasion. Recall them from exile.

The heat gives you permission the calendar won’t. It’s too hot to be productive and everyone quietly agrees. This is the one time of year the whole culture grants you the aimlessness you’ve been rationing. Take it before September repossesses it.

Dress like it’s easy, because it should be. I’ve been living in simple whites with a bold vintage scarf, the ones I’ve been collecting all year, thrown on top. That’s the whole outfit. It’s made getting dressed both effortless and a little bit of a thrill, which is exactly what a summer wardrobe is for.

A pause is the perfect time to edit. I did a deep purge of the house before we left town. I gave attention to the kids toys, clothes, the craft closet, the linens, my closet, my calendar, and a few habits that stopped earning their keep. It was liberating and I’m lighter anticipating how it will all feel when I return.

Collect the things you'll have feelings about. Release the rest. I'm gathering as I go, the objects I already know I'll be sentimental about, the ones that will carry these days home with them. Some are antiques. Some are just evidence: the shells my daughter is hoarding to make into a mirror when we get back, so that every time she catches her reflection she'll be standing on this beach again. I've decided, the vintage pieces I admire but feel nothing for are going. I've kept too many of them out of respect. Appreciation is not the same as attachment, and a thing you don't love is just taking up the space where something you do love could go. (Warehouse Sale attendees this fall. You're in luck.)

Notice out loud. Look at that light. Say it to whoever’s standing there. Naming a thing is how you keep it, and the ones you don’t name just leave without saying goodbye.

You do not have to earn the rest. This is the hardest one and I still am working to fully own. Summer isn’t the reward for being diligent and persistent the rest of the year. It’s just allowed to be good, on its own, for no reason.

And since I can’t take stock of the life without poking at the work, here are a few I’m turning over about design too. Less confession, more open questions, the kind worth asking whether you decorate for a living or just decide what goes on your own shelf. Pour something cold and take them with me.

Does your space feel like you? Are you playing it safe? It’s so easy to drift toward whatever feels palatable, one approved little choice at a time, until you look up and the whole room is something devoid of real feeling. What in your home is truly yours, and what did you just absorb? Go find one of each. Keep the first. Reconsider the second.

Is there a color you’re wanting to incorporate? The one that brings you joy but maybe you’re too nervous to commit to? What’s the worst that could happen? You remove it in six months. Go for it.

What in your house are you keeping out of guilt? The wedding gift you don’t like. The expensive mistake. The thing a relative would notice was gone. Guilt is a terrible reason to give something prime real estate. If it left tomorrow, would you grieve it or feel lighter? Be honest. Nobody’s watching.

And the big one: what would you make if no one were ever going to see it? Strip out the audience, the trend, the fear of being called too much. Whatever’s left is the good stuff. I suspect for most of us it’s bolder than anything we’ve done on purpose. Let’s go find that room this fall.

Beautiful pieces I’ve been sourcing and coming across - lots of wicker and wovens, summer textures, yellows (I’m obsessed at the moment) and an equal mix of quirky, classic and utiliarian. Not a member on ShopMy? Create an account here. Want to see my links? Click here.

Question’s I’m posing to you and to me.

Why don’t you say the no you’ve been dressing up as a maybe. You already know your answer. The kindest thing you can do for both of you is stop making them wait for it and stop making yourself carry it.

Why don’t you let this version of you be enough for now. Softer, slower, less impressive on paper. You are not behind. You are exactly where a person who’s been through what you’ve been through would be, and that person deserves your tenderness, not your audit.

Why don’t you eat dinner outside tonight for no reason at all. No occasion, no guests. Just a plate, the fading light, and the specific luxury of a meal that isn’t in a hurry.

Why don’t you drive with the windows down and let the radio pick the song. Comfort was never the point of a summer night. Let the warm air do the thing it’s been trying to do to you since June.

Why don’t you find water and get in it. A lake, the sea, a hose, a friend’s questionable inflatable pool. There’s a reason kids run toward water.

Why don’t you stay up past when you should for the fireflies, or the stars, or the last person still talking on the porch. September will hand your bedtime back. July is asking for it now.

Why don’t you let the afternoon go completely to waste. No walk with a goal, no errand folded in, no productive spin on it. The most radical thing you can do with a summer day is squander it on purpose.

Why don’t you eat the fruit standing over the sink while it’s dripping down your wrist. Peaches don’t keep, and neither does this. Both are best consumed messily and immediately.

Why don’t you go somewhere with no plan and let yourself get a little lost. The unmarked road, the town you can’t pronounce, the shop you stumble into. Summer is the one season generous enough to reward aimlessness.

Why don’t you wake up early, just once, and have the morning entirely to yourself before the house stirs. The coffee, the quiet, the light coming in low. Summer mornings are the best-kept secret of a season everyone else sleeps through.