Summer Challenge Week Five: Spontaneous Summer Play

Challenge #5: Summer invites play. What was the last act of spontaneous play that you indulged in? Who are the people that inspire you to spontaneous play? While it is a little less permissible for adults to indulge in spontaneous play, it is highly rewarding. Take a risk (a safe risk, please) this week and do something spontaneous or that is reminiscent of childhood play, whether it is a forgotten sport, time playing tether ball, or running through the neighbor’s sprinkler after a jog. Indulge this week in a playful activity or game with all your senses. Consider how it makes you feel and the memories that it inspires. Record in your sketchbook any ideas, illustrations, or thoughts and share here on The Paper Compass.

A few weeks ago, from the safe vantage point of the back porch where I was working, I was privy to one of the most ruthless and brilliant water gun battles of all time that took place at the neighbor’s house. Having apparently soaked the grass of the backyard to a sponge-like consistency while playing on the Slip-n-Slide, the neighbor children and their friends moved on to stalking each other with Super Soakers and using plastic winter sleds, unearthed from the garage, as shields. The moment of decisive victory came when an empty trash barrel was filled with water and up-ended on the Dennis-the-Menace-type middle child who unwittingly came to meet it as he ran around the front corner of the house.

Even though this act resulted in the wrath of the supervising parent, emerging from the back door to reiterate that the instructions were that everyone was to stay in the backyard, the enthusiasm of the gaggle of skinny wet-bathing suit clad children didn’t seem diminished, just refocused, as they jettisoned off to their next adventure.

It was remarkable to watch that kind of 100% energy and spontaneity for play, which I feel that adults are rarely given permission to indulge in unless it is a competitive structured sport. While there is nothing wrong with that, it’s my opinion, that it is the unstructured, spontaneous kind of play that is the most memorable.

Unstructured play leads to great creativity and great moments of humor. When my siblings and I were younger, we never were satisfied with a game or toy as is. This lead to the creation of such hybrid games as Medicine Ball Soccer (which was more like rugby and amazingly I can attest to no broken feet), Moving Target Bad Mitten (self-explanatory, no net needed), and doing things like emptying out a piñata full of candy and then filling it with fireworks. The tricky part then of being how to light it. (See image above for final result. I do not recommend trying this.)

Amazingly (and thankfully) we are all still uninjured and better yet, still doing these things when we get together.

All of this is the inspiration for the fifth Summer Challenge: Spontaneous Summer Play. What was the last act of spontaneous play that you indulged in? Who are the people that inspire you to spontaneous play? While it is a little less permissible for adults to indulge in spontaneous play, it is highly rewarding. Take a risk (a safe risk, please) to do something spontaneous or that is reminiscent of childhood play, whether it is a forgotten sport, time playing tether ball, or running through the neighbor’s sprinkler after a jog.

Take the time to indulge this week in a playful activity or game. As always, indulge in the activity with all your senses. Consider how it makes you feel and the memories that it inspires. Record in your sketchbook any ideas, illustrations, or thoughts and share here on The Paper Compass.

Summer Challenge Week Four: Sunrise, Sunset and High Noon

Challenge #4: In this interpretive challenge, think about the segmented times of the summer day from sunrise to afternoon to sunset (or after). Do you have a favorite? Pick a time to observe a certain point in the day, whether it is familiar to you, such as a summer afternoon or unfamiliar, such as getting up extra early one morning to see the sunrise. This is also a great challenge to think about time as a setting in movies, books, or even your own routine. This opens the challenge up to include watching a movie this week, such as High Noon, or taking the time to listen to music such as Chopin’s Nocturnes. This week, take in your time-exploring experience with all your senses. Record in your sketchbook any ideas, illustrations, or thoughts that it inspires and share here on The Paper Compass.

“The days are fruits and our job is to eat them.” -Jean Giono, Fullness of Days

Unlike other seasons, the summer is characterized as having an abundance of hours. This comes both from the extended amount of daylight and from the often playful or relaxing activities of summer, such as going to the beach or vacation time.

Currently we are in the heart of what has been known since ancient times as the Dog Days of Summer. The Greeks and Romans believed that the sultry heat and limited rainfall was a result of the rage of Sirius, associated with the Dog Star, which is one of the brightest stars, burning in the constellation Canis Major. The Dog Days were originally believed to be an evil time of hysterics, frenzies, mad dogs, fevered men, and languid creatures.

Modern conveniences such as air conditioning, refrigerators, Slurpees, and movie theaters have helped alleviate some of the corpulent evilness of the Dog Days, but I believe that there are some oppressive and slow summer moments where you can still feel the thin veil between the productive march of modern everyday-progress and the sinister, lazy nature of the Dog Days.

While much has been written about the pleasantness of a summer afternoon, there are not many odes to Dog Day afternoons. These are the almost unbearable high hours of the day that feel like the Sargasso Sea of summer, weighted and ponderous, with time hanging as thick as the air.

It is these afternoons that are actually one of my favorite things about summertime. They are full of stillness and invite you to be aware of the things that are absent: birdsong, the breeze, shadows. For me it embodies the nature of waiting and is a time pregnant with possibilities. Walking home from the T or to the library on a Dog Day afternoon, I often do some of my best plot line and character development thinking. Often in stories (or the weather) stillness forebodes the coming of the storm, and it is a great time to think about your character when they are not engaged in action but in solitude.

Also, the Dog Days of summer sometimes evoke in me a rare feeling of restlessness and boredom. This is a great combination for tinkering or for picking up a new book. Sometimes it is also just a good time to pour a cold glass of sun tea and sit as still as the air.

All of this is the inspiration for the fourth Summer Challenge: Sunrise, Sunset and High Noon. This is an interpretive challenge, so feel free to go where you feel inspired to. Think about the segmented times of the summer day from sunrise to a summer afternoon to sunset (or after). Do you have a favorite? This week, pick a time to observe a certain point in the day, whether it is familiar to you, such as a summer afternoon or unfamiliar, such as getting up extra early one morning to see the sunrise. Explore that time as a full sensory experience. How does it feel? What do you observe about it? What memories or emotions are connected to it?

This is also a great challenge to think about time as a setting in movies, books, or even your own routine. This opens the challenge up to include watching a movie this week, such as High Noon, or taking the time to listen to music such as Chopin’s Nocturnes. Take in your time-exploring experience with all your senses. Record in your sketchbook any ideas, illustrations, or thoughts that it inspires and share here on The Paper Compass.

If this post sparked your thinking on time, I highly recommend Slow Time by Waverly Fitzgerald as a further exploration of your relationship with the hours. You can also visit her blog: Living in Season for quarterly inspiration.

Summer Challenge Week Three: Ice Cream

Challenge #3: What is your favorite ice cream flavor or frozen treat? When you were younger where did you go to get ice cream? Was it from an ice cream truck, a shop or an ice cream parlor? This week treat yourself to your favorite childhood ice cream or frozen concoction. Use all your senses as you indulge in this summertime tradition. Record the experience, memories, and thoughts on revisiting your favorite flavor or frozen treat in your sketchbook and share here on The Paper Compass.

"It’s summer. Eat ice cream.”

I don’t think I could say it better than my fellow mediaman team member Beth LaPointe’s current Skype status.

With sweltering temperatures, bright blazing sun, and extra hours of light that fill the evenings, summertime allows us the perfect weather in which to fully appreciate the delightfully frozen treat of ice cream. Whether it is from an ice cream parlor, Baskin Robin’s, or a treat that follows the tinny, beckoning music of the ice cream truck, ice cream is an inherent summer tradition.

The beautiful thing about eating something frozen in the summertime is that it requires the concentration that is so key to emersion in a single experience and excellent for creative thinking. You must strategize your method of eating as the ice cream melts. Do you lick around the edge of the cone? In concentric circles? What happens when you get down to the cone? Everyone has a different tactic.

Even more of a challenge in my opinion, are the sweet treats from the ice cream truck. With an architectural support structure composed of a single stick (unless it is a Chipwich or ice cream sandwich), you must eat it in such a way that half the concoction does not slide off in a slick melting pile when you devour one side. Many a Chocolate Éclair, Strawberry Shortcake, Sponge Bob and Mickey Mouse chocolate-eared ice cream pop have met this fateful end.

Where I grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, Baskin Robin’s was a short walk from the house. If you left the backyard through the side gate—which was a flimsy wire fence that you needed to lift up-and- out of the looped closures—and proceeded down the narrow street that ran in front of a series of little bungalows, you would come out in the back alley behind the bike shop and Garden Catering, across from my Dad’s store. The bike shop would, a few years later, burn down in a raging fire at three in the morning that made the whole of main street smell like burning rubber. Garden Catering, on the other hand is still there, with its impossibly narrow white-sided shop front, an American flag out front and the neon OPEN sign glowing in the window. I can still taste the seasoned fries and apple fritters.

If you then turned left and went under the train bridge and up a small hill, you reached the shopping center in which my knowledge of ice cream was first formed. After the walk from the house, not only was Baskin Robins delightfully cold with its air conditioned interior, but the chilled air also carried a slightly creamy-sweet scent. Everything about the ice cream store seemed exciting at the time: the smell, the metal rimmed counter with its padded stools that spun, the small pink tasting spoons, and the freezer cases with the flavors displayed like a pastel watercolor paint box in their recessed tubs.

While my mom’s favorite flavor was Mint Chocolate Chip, and my Dad often got Rocky Road, I eagerly anticipated the summertime flavor of Bubble Gum. This pale pink ice cream, sprinkled with tiny colored bubble gum pieces, was strangely delicious and incredibly complex to eat. To this day I still like it and simultaneously do not completely comprehend why—perhaps sentimentality. As you lick the ice cream, you have to chew the gum—which is not chewy because it is frozen, so you end up swallowing it along with the ice cream. It defies logic and is not something not to be over thought…just enjoyed before it melts.

All of this is the inspiration for the third Summer Challenge: Ice Cream. Ice Cream and frozen treats are a summertime tradition and a great way to emerge yourself in a sensory experience or unlock memories for creative inspiration.

This week make time to indulge in an ice cream treat. I recommend revisiting a favor childhood flavor or experience, whether it is tracking down an ice cream truck or finding an ice cream parlor with a counter. Use all your senses to note the color, taste, texture, smell, and sounds of eating ice cream in the summertime. Note the experience in your sketchbook and share here on The Paper Compass

Summer Challenge Week Two: Books

Challenge #2: What is your favorite summertime book or reading experience? By the end of the week: dig up, check out, find, or purchase and begin re-reading your favorite summertime book or series. The book can be recent or from your childhood. Exercise your imagination and use all your senses as you rediscover your book, its plot and characters. Record the experience, memories, and thoughts of revisiting a favorite book or character in your sketchbook and share here on The Paper Compass.

For me, summer is the season for reading. You can find me whiling away many weekend afternoons or mornings on the back porch, deeply engrossed in the imaginative activity of reading. It is not that I don’t read all year long—often, it is hard to find me without several books on my person at once. It is more that the long lazy days and evenings of summer seem the perfect permission to escape into a book.

To prove to you what a bibliophile I am, I will confess that one of the things I liked most about the summers of my adolescent and childhood were the school and library summer reading goals and the academic summer reading list. Meant to inspire kids to read, I needed no further urging and would set lofty numerical goals checking out half the books at a time, or plan out how I was going to read every book on the list. The summer reading list is how I discovered summer classics such as Tuck Everlasting and The Great Gatsby, along with many other books that now line the shelves of my bookcases.

From the summer reading list, I developed the ritual of reading classics in the summertime. While the “perfect beach read” is often eagerly devoured, I still continue to set goals to work my way through some of the classics. One of my favorite haunts in the summer before and after my senior year in high school was the Book Rack, introduced to me by my friend Crystal. It was a used book store in a dated strip mall, shadowed by a massive Banyan Tree, off of PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Packed floor to ceiling in a semi-organized fashion, the store smelled of dusty paperbacks, linoleum and air conditioning that was so strong it caused the front plate glass to be covered with condensation. Our destination was the wall at the front of the store that held used literary fiction, the volumes somehow less intimidating with their dog-eared covers and yellowing pages. This is where I purchased Sylvia Path’s The Bell Jar, Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent, and where Crystal introduced me to J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories.

Another highlight of the Book Rack was that, on lucky occasion, if you asked the woman at the front desk if they had any original Nancy Drew books, she would reach into a bottom drawer and pull out a small plastic basket of the increasingly rare blue-backed girls’ serial novels from the 30s, 40s and 50s.

Back in the summers of 4th and 5th grade, I devoured my mom’s collection of Nancy Drew Mysteries, sometimes one a day, and developed a lifelong fondness for the girl sleuth. The liberation of summertime seems to echo the freedom of Nancy and her chums, racing ahead of a storm in Nancy’s roadster, a mystery just around the corner. For me and my overactive imagination, slow ordinary summer afternoons especially seem to simmer with the expectation that an adventure is right around the corner...even if it is just in the book that I am currently reading.

All of this is the inspiration for the second Summer Challenge: Books. Reading is (or should be in my humble opinion) an integral part of summertime whether it is for leisure or to pass time when traveling. Revisiting a favorite summertime book from your distant or recent past can be a great way to unlock your imagination, be inspired by a remembered character, or revisit an old favorite from a new perspective.

This week make time to visit your bookcase, library or local bookstore to obtain a previous summer favorite. Exercise your imagination and use all your senses as you rediscover your book, its plot and characters. Record the experience, memories, and thoughts of revisiting a favorite book or character in your sketchbook and share here on The Paper Compass.

I will leave you with one of, what I think, is a quintessential summertime passage from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, when Nick first meets Daisy and Jordan:

“A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags…The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few minutes listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear window and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtain and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.”