Art Beat: Feels like summer

Hi, my name is Jacob Mann. I cover the Art Beat for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Summer Solstice is a month away, and that’s essentially considered the first official day of summer.

For many of us Alaskans, we tend to consider the spring month of May as our soft opening for summer. Despite the cold drops at the end of the day, we feel like it might as well be summer compared to what we’ve been dealing with during our winter and our supposed spring, which really tends to be more of winter’s hangover, am I right?

It’s the last week of May. 2021 graduates relieved their diplomas and their younger peers are about to enter another summer break. So, like most others up here, I’m not going to wait for June 20 to officially declare summer to all and to all a good night. I say it feels summery enough even though we still pack jackets in our cars for that end-of-day temperature drop.

I know I’m not alone because I’ve seen the roads, bike paths, and public parks erupt with activity. Sports cars and motorcycles are roaring out of their winter slumbers.

It’s easy to see the difference between now and just 30 days ago, so imagine how much warmer and how much hustle there will be in everyone’s bustle 30 days from now. I don’t need to because, to me, it already feels like summer, like that Childish Gambino song. Summer is a state of mind.

In honor of summer and all the good vibes it brings, here are some of my favorite quotes from movies, books, essays, and even songs about the season.

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in the fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

“If it could only be like this always—always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe…”

— Evelyn Waugh

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

— Henry James

“O summer and soft wind. Relieves the heart and makes living cheaper.”

— J.P. Donleavy

“I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.”

— Kelle Elmore

“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.”

Wallace Stevens

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air’s salubrity.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

- William Shakespeare

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

- Albert Camus

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”

- Harper Lee

“Smell the sea, and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly.”

- Van Morrison