Summer

There are things to say and ways to say them. But there’s also when. And when is the most important part of saying anything. Not that it’s more important that the thing you want to say. Yet without timing, what’s the point of saying?

Fall is an inopportune season for beginning anything. And beginnings can’t be begun without words. Best to just hunker down and coast along without upsetting the balance that brought you this far.

Winter is just a terrible season for talking at all. Wrap yourself up in a blanket whenever possible, stare into a fire and drink. Drinking is the best replacement for talking in dark, dreary months.

Spring is, in fact, the most opportune season for a beginning. However, there is so much to be done during spring that words, more often than not, lay forgotten by the wayside. Best to just leave them be safely tucked away rather than flung about, the victim of sudden distraction. Spring is rife with such distraction.

Summer, then, is the season for words. The action of Spring lay behind you and the pallor of winter too far ahead to bother you. And fall is just a bump along the road that should never worry a soul.

Summer is to words on the tip of your tongue as a hug is to an overdue reunion of far-flung friends. Words need breath and space in which to move and grow before breaking ground. And silence to be heard.

Space and silence are summer. Space is given by heavy bodies come to rest in the midst of sweltering heat. And silence is the devotion of summer where meaningless dialogue and the unnecessary rush give way to the sway of fans and the buzz of June bugs.

Summer is the moment just before speaking. Summer attention is gladly given. Summer is a rapt audience.

So, give thought to your words and then give them a voice. You have had fall to compose, Winter to edit and Spring to revise. Now is the moment, summer the time, to speak. They will listen. We will listen in the midst of ice clinking in sweating glasses and the rustle of far too many clothes for far too warm a day.

Speak.