Boyle McCauley News

Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

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Summertime, time, time . . .

We’ve finally brushed off the last remnants of our cold season. We are free to wander from our homes without the encumbrance of long underwear, gloves, toques, heavy jackets, and woolen socks. It’s summer in our fair city again, my people!

The long dark winter months are temporarily in stasis and the sunshine and warmth call us to the outdoors. That gentle beckoning became more like a frantic scream during the warm days where I’m stuck inside with my computer and phone earning my living. “Keri! Keri! Come out and play! It’s so balmy and the trees are blooming and the air is beautiful! Come outside!” The hours that are mine, however, are spent basking in the temperate season.

Long walks are usually the call of the day. There’s nothing like blossoming plants and the warm play of light and shadow to transform even the most unsightly landscape into a wondrous vista. Doesn’t a pretty tree just make all the difference in a yard? Or a colourful flower? Everything just looks more beautiful. Of course, one would want to go outside and explore all the hidden treasures around the neighbourhood.

On the days one is homebound, the windows can be thrown open to let the outside in. Not a thing easily accomplished over the cold months. The air scented with the seasonal blossoms can drift in and refresh your living space and in doing so, lifting one’s spirits. The laughter of the children in the park can flow through the chatter of the vicinity and we can all laugh with them. Summer just lends itself to a natural buoyancy of one’s psyche.

Perhaps it’s the sense of life thriving around us that encourages this abundance of exuberance. Plants are alive with summer blush and fragrance. People shed their winter cocoons and spend more time out of doors. Sunlight lasts longer and is stronger. We, as a result, feel a greater connection with the world around us. We are more in the world and more of the world.

Maybe it’s the sense that summer, as all of life, is just a transitory phase. Time will, once again, slip by us and frost will settle all our roaming to and fro. The trees will drop their leaves. We will once again settle into more structured and predictable routines. The winter of life will come to us all and as the snow settles over the wilting grass our bones will grow brittle and our eyesight dim. We will no longer be able to turn cartwheels in the park and run with the inexhaustible strength of our youth.

We know, however, that past every winter there always waits another spring. As time is cyclic and the seasons come around we will once again run and jump and play with all the abandon that we never really forgot.

Keri lives in Boyle Street. She was obviously in a good mood when she wrote this. It must have been all of the plants and flowers she was sniffing.

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