What if summer isn't all about blooming after all...

and what is it about instead…?

Jul 26, 2024

A warm hello to some beautiful new faces that have joined us recently, I am so glad you have found your way here… I’m Lyndsay — mother, creative and storyteller with a background in interiors PR. Step inside Story & Thread., a cosy, layered home where the threads of creativity, interiors and mothering meet. Here, we unearth the stories from the seasons of our lives, with a house & a garden at the heart, and everyday beauty as our guide.

“Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon.”

–C. Day-Lewis.

Hello dear reader

How is everything in your world?

Somehow it seems as though we are racing towards the end of July, and I have been thinking about how we often place pressure on summer (and our summer selves) to behave in a certain way — for the sun to shine continuously; for us to be out and about making the most of the light, creating memories that will one day become bottled as summer nostalgia; for the flowers to bloom all summer long.

It is a season of wild beauty, where things come to fruition and ripen, where the light is expansive (even through a cloud filter some days), where petals peel themselves open to the sun. But perhaps beyond the emerging and blooming, it is more about a deepening and a becoming…

Becoming more.

A flower in bloom is the deepest expression of itself, it is a continuation of everything that has gone before — the hopeful act of sowing, the first searching tendrils of root growth, the eager beginnings of tender shoots above ground, and when the right conditions are present, it becomes more of itself.

The bloom is beautiful but it can be fragile and short-lived — thinking of it as the deepening within a process speaks to something more enduring. The blooming does not happen in isolation — it takes gentle tending and nurturing; water, nourishment, and quiet trust to allow growth to come from within, as well as being spurred on by solar power.

All in.

Unlike the transitional seasons of spring and autumn, summer is ‘all in’. It is everything, and then some more. The light is at its brightest and there is more of it — it illuminates everything it touches, and yet the shadows are also their darkest. The weather can fall short of our expectations, but when the heavy clouds part, there is an intensity present — the sun burns brightly and the rays beam gold, from sky to earth. Rains don’t hold back either, drenching our days, even the drizzle seems to seep into our summer souls. Strong sun and downpours create a vibrancy to summer flowers that paint a glorious technicolour landscape on the canvas of our longer days. Our senses are heightened. Seasonal summer fare has a fresh, potent deliciousness that lingers on our lips.

There is an alchemy in summer that melts, merges and melds — it is not one thing or the other, it is everything, both/and, and then a little bit more. To avoid burnout, a summer pause is required — a lull, a still point, a chance to leave space at the edges, to loosen, to bask a while, to immerse ourselves and absorb this season fully. There is an aspect of bedding in, not unlike the other ‘fixed’ season of winter, but rather than hunkering down and tucking ourselves away, it is about finding ourselves submerged in our fullest expression, in a magnificent reflection of our surroundings.

For what is the point of blooming (perhaps fleetingly), without pausing to make space, to deepen our roots, to stretch out with yearning, and to become more of ourselves?

Immersing myself in summer.

Earlier in the year, I explored the idea of winterspring, the uncomfortable in-between, the back and forth of the long and drawn-out spiral stairway to spring. I wrote about how winterspring had become nestled into my life as a way of being, in particular in this season of mothering. That as my children grow and I am not required for their moment-to-moment survival and they become more comfortable in their corner of the world, that I had begun to feel a tentative reemergence.

Yet I am realising as I move into this hazy sense of summer, it is not an emergence in the way I had imagined where I have figured it all out; and it is not the blooming I had envisioned where I step out into the dazzling light. It is instead, a deepening into my wholeness, and from there, tending the glow that comes from within. It is remembering all of the co-existing pieces of myself, weaving them together and becoming each of them more deeply.

It is about becoming attuned to what is required in our newest chapter as my daughter approaches school for the first time in September. I wonder how my role will shift both inwardly and outwardly and how I can be everything that I am now, before and always… how I can restructure and realign my inner and outer expression for myself, alongside my children….

Holding it all.

In my experience, the act of mothering lends itself to wholeness, it encapsulates the fullness of experience. There is the holding — the physical holding of children (more than I ever could have imagined), the holding of emotions (mine and theirs), the holding of so much in my body and mind — of interwoven joy and despair, often in the same breath. The realisation that life is very rarely either/or and is most often both/and — that multiple truths exist at the same time and every seemingly conflicting thought or feeling is valid, and each must be held with tenderness and care.

The daily holding requires an expansion of myself, I now exist far beyond my own edges. The stretching, gathering and the digging deep each day continues to shape me. It is as though we have to be shattered by the early years of mothering (and beyond) to return to whole.

Mothering the whole.

Since becoming a mother, I have softened and I care more (about everything), and yet my boundaries are bolstered, as arrows of protectiveness have the power to shoot directly into my heart. Light lives next to dark, like a summer shadow. Love sits uncannily close to anger, often spilling into one another and back again.

There is beauty glinting within the hardest moments, and yet often something excruciating about the mess of beautiful ones. There are impossible moments of frustration and exasperation, alongside a magnetism pulling me close, urging me to never let go.

I can flit from awe to boredom, wonder to weariness within seconds. I can feel as free as a bird in flight, at the same time as wincing from the wounds where my wings have been clipped. I am making sense of my own self-expression, whilst often not being able to find the words.

There is a sense of wildness and the possibility for really anything to happen in any given moment, alongside the mundane repetition of each day. There is precious little time for creativity, alongside the realisation that mothering is the act of creativity itself. The little things have become the big things, and at the same time, the world I inhabit most of the time has become a lot smaller. I wholeheartedly believe in my value and that mothering is a radical act of hope, whilst the feeling of ‘not enoughness’ permeates my thin skin. I am a constant unwavering presence in my children’s eyes and yet largely unseen and unvalued in the outside world1.

I have talked about emerging from the unseen but perhaps it is less about the emerging and the blooming which can be fleeting, and more about a deepening into my fullest expression — where I am able to take up space to be more of myself. It is work that is undertaken slowly from the inside out — a remembering, an integration and an anchoring as I envision a becoming that radiates with rich vibrancy from deep within.

Thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear more about how you are feeling in summer and what it means to you in the comments. Or of course feel free to send me an email, it is always lovely to hear from you.