I sometimes stop myself from writing too much about my personal life in these blogs because the reality is most of you read them for the forecast or my take on the current state of the atmosphere. But sometimes the things I am doing while I am not blogging, turn in part to a blog and may eventually lead to a forecast or perspective on the weather.

So, this morning I was in my kayak paddling around a local cove enjoying the early light of the day. I do a lot of thinking in those moments, reflecting, creating, evaluating. After an hour rattling around my own mind, I decided to listen to Pandora on the phone. I the kayak I carry the smartphone with me for emergencies. It’s in a waterproof bag clipped inside the boat. I figure the GPS would at least tell someone where I was if something bad happened. In reality, I could probably swim to shore if I had to, I’m that close.

I was actually surprised how great the music sounded through the bag. While listening to the Jackson Browne station I created, on played Summer Breeze, a song sung by Seals and Crofts, and a number 1 hit in 1972. That summer, I was a very young camper at Center Day camp in Maine. That’s the time of life when summer seems as long as the rest of the year and the idea of it being just a couple of short months is as foreign to an eight year old boy as adulthood itself.

There’s several lines in the song which resonated with me, but the one that hit me especially hard was

Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom,July is dressed up and playing her tune

July is special when it comes to summer. While meteorological summer covers June through August and astronomical summer runs from mid-June through mid-September, July sings summer. Sure August is still summer, but college students are back in school well before the end of that month and for many years now lots of public schools start in late August.

July is as far away from January as you can be on the calendar. Whether you look backwards or forwards, January is 6 months away. Although we have lost a few minutes of daylight, for most of you it’s negligible and it won’t be until those early days in August when you start commenting how it’s getting dark earlier.

July has been quite nice this year. Since the skies cleared Independence day, we’ve been enjoying some amazing weather. While today did feature high levels of humidity and some showers over western New England, it was still classic summer. Although there will be limited amounts of sunshine for Wednesday and Thursday, it won’t be cool and even the predicted thunderstorms are parts of the summer scene. The upcoming weekend is looking fantastic with abundant sunshine and very warm to hot temperatures. If you haven’t been to the beach yet, this weekend will be an ideal one to head there. The image below is from the GFS model and shows a dry and warm weekend ahead.

Summer of course is more than the beach or the pool, it’s a state of mind, a feeling. In other sets of lines from the same song Seals and Crofts sing,

See the paper layin’ on the sidewalk
A little music from the house next door
So I walked on up to the doorstep
Through the screen and across the floor

The idea of a screen door is also quintessential summer. A few months from now the screens are put away for the winter. I don’t walk through a screen door in January, I rush through a wooden one and close it quickly behind me.

We’ve got three weeks left of July and she’s all dressed up. Don’t leave her there alone, make the most of the warmth, the beauty, and the attitude she brings. Sure there’s always next year, but even in the longest of lifetimes, there aren’t more than 100 of them, lets savor this one.

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