Have you reminded yourself lately that it’s the good ol’ days? It was a hard thing to do during the height of the pandemic, which still isn’t over. But when I hugged my grandparents last week for the first time in a year, it felt like the good ol’ days. My work day was done, I was reunited with my loved ones, and all I had to do was sit in their sunroom and shoot the breeze.
Gone are the days where the end of May meant the start of a three month vacation. But the energy of summer anticipation still coils within me as the month winds to a close. Soon, cookouts and pool parties. Soon, fireworks, late sunsets, and breezy skirts. The beauty of the traditional three month summer vacation is the potential to do anything, but more importantly, the possibility of doing nothing.
Niksen is a Danish practice of intentionally doing nothing. It’s not mindfulness. It’s mindlessness. No thoughts, head empty. Nothing brings to mind aimless contentment more than summer nights as a teen when I would sneak onto the roof of my house and watch cars pass on the street below just for the sake of watching them. Summer is the season of niksen. A season of staring at crashing waves for minutes on end and thinking about nothing in particular. For viewing sunsets from an idly rocking porch swing until the mosquitoes getcha.
The future is uncertain, as usual. But I hope it holds a lot of nothing for all of us, so we can take the chance to sit back and soak it in.
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