Summer in New England

  Some people like to say that Ireland is the greenest place on Earth. But I like to think it just might be New England. At least in the summer. In the summer the whole of the region is swathed in rich greens. ​

  Fields and forests, to the grassy dunes along shoreline and the little shoots coming through the sidewalks, everywhere you look you see green.
    Humidity creeps in in mid-July, bringing on the dog days of summer. At night rain pours down in sheets, thunder shakes the roofs of the houses, and bright lightning lights up fiery veins across the sky.
    But then the storms bid us goodbye when the morning falls. The claps of thunder from the night before give way to glistening drops of water shimmering in the morning sunlight over all of the greenery.
    The mornings are quiet and smell of dew and blooming flowers. The afternoons are long and hot, a time when swimming pools and lemonade are greatly appreciated. The evenings are home to fireflies, mosquitoes, and stars. 
    Some nights the moon is so round and golden above the overgrown fields of rundown farms. It’s so close it looks like you could pluck it straight from the sky, fold it up, and put it in your pocket. 

  The pace of life is fast all year, everyone lives in a suburb. Suburbs of big cities that keep up with the perpetual movement of the cities themselves. But when it warms up, we slow down just a touch, and become lethargic, if only for a short while. 
    Our constant going gives way to beach day trips, picnics and family vacations.
    The beaches are covered with rocky, coarse sand and dark water. Not the bright sky blue of the southern shores. It isn’t as peaceful, it has a sort of violence to it. The waves foaming and crashing wildly on the shores of the islands, capes, and coastal cities, but slowing down into a lull on the sound. The water is never warm, but that’s a part of its charm. 
Gulls call our shores home, waiting for you to open your cooler, or for a child to drop half of their sandwich into the sand. Did you even go to the beach if you didn’t eat any sand?
    The beaches are dotted with colorful umbrellas, and kites. Rock jetties go out into the water, where children eagerly try to catch crabs on chicken legs tied to string. 
    The forests also call. Mountains, miniature in comparison to those out west, but massive just the same. The greenness covers it all. Bears and deer freely roam, getting ready for the cold to come.
 The rivers and streams are rushing with the rain from the thunder storms and the trout are practically begging for boys to catch them.
    The woods are for camping in, for spending the night around a fire admiring the stars. For sleeping out in a tent, and waking up to a wet sleeping bag because the dew seeped in

  In the summer we eat clams and mussels, shrimp, and crab. Lobsters are in their prime, and so are lobster rolls. Almost every restaurant is selling a version of them, whether served in a cold salad, or hot and buttered, take your pick. 
    In the summer the corn and tomatoes are flourishing.
    In the summer we eat ice cream almost every night, from the ice cream stand down the road, from our freezers or from the ice cream truck, pulling spare dollars out in order to get our yearly Spongebob popsicles. 
    We live our summers now, because we know that soon, the leaves will begin to change and the air will gain a spicy, sharp smell. We’ll begin picking our apples in excess and placing pumpkins in every corner. 
    But now while it’s still summer, we bask in the sunlight. Because after all, summer was made for New England, or New England was made for summer. You can decide which came first. But nonetheless, there is nothing quite like summer in New England.

Belle Thomas

​Belle is the writer behind An Old Fashioned Girl. She is passionate about Jesus, classic literature, and living a beautiful life.