Summertime: When the living is easIER...

I know for some folks - for instance, Porgy and Bess, living is truly easy come Summertime. According to George Gershwin, fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.

As for me, though?

Sorry to say, a “Gone Fishin’!” sign isn't hanging on my Writing Room door. 

What I did do June 21, though, was strive to reconnect with the Writer within by living each summer’s day with a bit more ease.

So,

here’s the Lakeshore Park wrought iron bench I continue to claim most afternoons to sit and, drum roll please:  again read for pleasure.

Lakeshore Park’s out my door and across the street.

When it comes to writing, reading was my long-ago First Love. It was reading that made me a Writer, period.

The Writer within me hasn’t joined Jeanne Marie’s family at the Statue of Liberty... yet, but thanks to authors Eric Larson, Jean Thompson, Lee Smith, Jennifer Haigh, Gary Schmidt and John Milliken Thompson, just to name a few, we’ve gone back and forth in time to visit Nazi Germany, Iowa and the Midwest, North Carolina, Boston, Long Island and Richmond, Virginia.

Here’s Seneca Park’s Eli Schulman Playground,

outside my door and two blocks to the right.

Thanks to my newest love - my sweet grandson Gabriel, board book ideas roam my brain’s Hard Drive 24-7, no matter the season.

Watching and listening to children - including Gabriel! - at play this summer, any time of day, the way I long-ago observed my own sweet son, has me once again growing book ideas for little ones.

Ironically, it was a baby and toddler concept book that first brought me to the Children’s Book World.

I find that memory every bit as delicious as the cheesecake manufactured by the park's namesake.

Finally,

my Muse and I once again walk Lakeshore Park's quarter-mile track daily, thinking about the books we read, marinating the possibilities of my kiddo-sparked ideas, grateful for boasting a Chicago zip code.

A serious foot injury sadly brought my Power Walking to a halt a year ago.

(Honestly, I never even knew what a Podiatrist did! Were someone to mention the condition plantar faciitis, my mind would have turned up Planter’s Mr. Peanut.)

But now I’m back on track, literally and figuratively.

Here’s my view of Lake Michigan when I turn the track to walk east.

Here’s my view of Chicago's skyline when I turn to walk west.

So,

so far,

so good,

as I hang with the Writer within I’ve let be way too long.

My Summer in the City feels like Old Home Week.

Enjoy your summer, vacationing or not!

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S.

Click here to listen to just a few of my iPod's Summer Songs that keep me dancing at least 8 times round the track.