Slices of Life

The So Long Summer Edition

Photo by Katie Moum

I sliced open a peach the other day. Lobbed it apart in quarters, four straight cuts alongside the pit. This is the only way to do it in early summer, when peaches cling stubbornly to their centers.

But this time, when I made my final slice, the pit came tumbling out, dancing from side to side on the cutting board.

How is this possible? I thought. Freestone peaches—that is, when the pit releases effortlessly, leaving the relief of itself behind—are a sign of late summer, a barometer for the season’s increasing heat and ease and endpoint.

Then I remembered it was, in fact, late July.

That’s how fast this summer went by. This entire peach-timekeeping episode happened not last month, but the month before that.

Such is summer, right? Can you believe it’s over? The autumn equinox doesn’t arrive for a few more weeks, but c’mon. It’s September! In my book, that means so long summer and hello fall.

And hello, Substack! To catch up after a quiet couple of months, I thought I’d share some recent (peach) slices of life from around here…

A Nice, Long Vacation

My daughter and I are sitting at the table, just us two, the day before we’re leaving on a road trip for the Fourth of July.

It’s all we can talk about. Which of her brightly colored bathing suits does she want to pack? (All of them!) How many jigsaw puzzles will we finish while we’re there? (Same!) How hot does 100 degrees feel on the skin? (Melty!)

She’s excited!

She’s also been in a mood, for over a week now.

This sometimes happens with three year olds, or so they tell me. Experts who should know about these things call it individuation, that emotional and mental separation from caregivers. Kids forge their own selves, but want assurance that we, their parents, are still there for them.

So amidst all this individuating, she’s feeling sassy about something. The lack of strawberries on her plate? That the PJs she wants are in the wash and unavailable? Who knows!

But on it goes, for the whole meal, until finally I say, I hear you baby, I do, but could we try to talk about how you’re feeling without all the yelling and whining? and she says, But I FEEL like yelling and whining.

“Oof,” is what I say in reply, “It’s going to be a lonnnnnng vacation if you keep this up.”

She stops dead in her tracks. Looks at me with a mixture of concern and pity, as if no one has explained to me this most important life lesson:

“But mama,” she says slowly, “We want it to be a long vacation.”

A book review, of sorts

Different month, different family getaway. I read LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE and I need to know who among us has also read this book, which incidentally gave me a two-day book hangover. It was A Confederacy of Dunces meets Succession, if the Roys were a Long Island family who made bagillions off styrofoam. To say I loved this book is an understatement. Perhaps this is an alarming admission, but I felt seen by it. Saw pieces of myself in each of the characters. Felt exposed in equal measure. It is billed as a book about the corrosive effects of money, but at its core, it is a book about trauma and its intergenerational effects.

Ugh, but the characters are all so deplorable and unlikeable and truly horrible, say some online reviews. Yes, I imagine typing in reply, But so was everyone in Succession. It didn’t mean I didn’t cheer for them. It didn’t mean I couldn’t have empathy for them. How I understood, exactly, why they were the way they were.

(I suspect this also forms the basis for my love and appreciation of Real Housewives.)

If you are piqued by this vague yet personal yet glowing review, I really loved author Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s July essay that frames the impetus behind the book and its themes. (Essay TW for a traumatic birth story experience).

Here is a recipe for a cocktail I drank all summer.

I just realized I don’t have a name for it. Campari Lime Spritz? Campari Cooler? Tuscan Golden Hour? (Or, if we’re to base it off my feed this past summer, let’s name it the Everyone’s in Italy.)

It’s simple:

• Fill a highball glass with lots of ice, then squeeze the juice of an entire lime into it—say, three tablespoons worth.

• Pour in a splash of Campari. Call it 1 tablespoon if you prefer a limier drink; 1.5 tablespoons if you like it bitter (agrodolce for la dolce vita, you know?)

• Top with club soda, until the bottom looks like the best sunset you saw this summer.

It’s bracing and bitter, citrusy and refreshing, and low ABV to boot. Not groundbreaking in the least, but a revelation all the same. Very much a summer bevvy and I’m probably sharing it a hair late, but maybe you’ll like it this fall, when the evenings grow dark too quickly and you’re missing these warm harvest days.

The Double Twenty

I turned 40 years old in August. Kept it low key—Champagne and favorite takeout and cheesecake on the day of, then a dinner out with my husband the following weekend.

What’s it like on this side of things?

Kind of the same, and totally different, all at once.

Unchanged: I wake up at the same time everyday and immediately look at my phone. I feel the same in my body. No new wrinkles. Good habits did not suddenly disappear. Ditto the bad ones (see: scrolling upon waking).

But hitting the big 4-0 milestone has left me reflective.

I described it to a couple people as the sensation of a split screen. I find myself thinking a lot about my 20s and 30s—all the things I did do, didn’t do, who I was, who I became—and I feel a sensation of both pride and, if I’m honest, shame. Wait, that sounds like such a harsh word. Is disappointment lighter?

I think it’s born from a sense that there is still so much I want to do and experience in my lifetime, and the keen realization that I am no longer in the sunrise of my life. Not the sunset either (one hopes), but midday. While the morning is gone and the coffee long cold, a full afternoon stretches ahead.

However, this is no time to dawdle.

Some days, it makes me feel a little panicky. You feel the weight of four decades worth of choices, all firmly snapped into place, writing a story about who you are. Then you feel the freedom of the years to come, and all the ways you could choose to change or be or do. That’s overwhelming in its own way, too.

But all in all, I would say the biggest feeling in my first month of 40 is one of gratitude. Still here, still kicking, still dreaming, still going for it. Creative engine running, albeit a little clunkier at times.

Spirit: unbroken.

Outlook: hopeful.

All ideal ingredients for a great autumn season (which also happens to be my favorite). Here’s hoping yours is shaping up similarly.

What about you? Any slices of life to share from your summer? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.