“What one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever.” ~Mary Jo Putney

Over the past weeks, I have been skimming a wonderful book entitled Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story by Christina Baldwin. I am reading this book in preparation for our church’s fall theme of “A Story to Stand On.” More about that at a later date. While reading the book, I saw this little quote tucked in the edges of the margin and it made me smile. As these summer days have held us captive with their heat and humidity, most of my native Minnesota friends have been complaining and hibernating in the air conditioning. If I have the courage to mention that I actually like this weather, I am given that stern glare of a teacher who has just caught a child cheating on a test. “How can you like this weather?”

I like it because it is the weather of my childhood. I like the way the air smells damp with humidity, how the mornings have moisture hanging along the trees and plants, a moisture that mimics fog. I like how the evenings draw on, how you can hear the neighborhood children after dark as they try to wring a few more moments of play out of the hot day. I like how your iced tea glass sweats and you are forced to wrap a paper towel around it to keep it from dripping down your arm. I like the sort of dazed looks on people’s faces as they stand waiting for the bus or those who have been working in their gardens, how the heat has dulled any thought of worry or trouble. There is only the temperature to be reckoned with and it is a powerful force.

On hot summer days like these, I love going to the library where people have sought solace. In the cool air they walk among the stacks looking at books they might not have taken the time to even pull off the shelf in the dead of winter. They linger over a cheesy novel. Who knows? It might just be the book that will take them through this hot spell. Children, sunburned and glassy-eyed from being swimming most of the day, sit at tables looking at picture books while teenagers rifle through adventure and fantasy stories wishing to be snapped into the drama of its pages. Yesterday, I had the privilege of an hour or more to sit on the couch reading a book for no other good reason than it was too hot to do anything else. What a gift!

When I moved to Minnesota, I embraced the cold and snow, the sheer pride we feel when we speak of things like wind chill and white outs. But the loves of my childhood have stuck with me. Sweaty legs tucked up on a porch swing, a book held loosely, while balancing a glass of sweet tea and listening to the cicadas hum background music. The summers of my childhood will always hold a soft spot in my heart. I could move to the frozen tundra and it would not change.

What are your child hood loves? What lovely memory from child hood have you left untended? May you be blessed today with a visitation of those things which will always have a sweet resting spot in your heart. And may you stay cool…….