Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

I am drawn, by some bizarre inclination, to the allure of midsummer. I have been, ever since high school English syllabus and Shakespeare’s titled comedy appeared on our reading list around the age of 14, I think. It would have been way too easy a study for the Matric English Lit Shakespeare, at which point in our schooling we uncovered the bloodlust and guilt of Macbeth and Lady M.

Nothing has changed in life since old William penned his literature. Bloodthirsty politicians still kill each other for power. Star crossed lovers continue to die. Men and women now officially have interchangeable roles in life. Hallucinogens are found in every part of society.

And I am still drawn to the lure of fairy lights and dreams and starry, short-lasting warm nights.

From a mystical lore, the magic and gaiety and humour was the biggest draw of AMND, for in South Africa, I had no real perception of a proper Midsummer.

Our Midsummer was 3 days away from Christmas- and Christmas was our religion. Fairy lights and misplaced identity was not. So we tended to the birth of Christ and sang our carols, played the Angel Gabriel at Nativity scenes, and celebrated summer and Christmas all in the same way.

What I thought I knew about midsummer was a fallacy of literature, for the reality of the entire period has brought me way more joy than I ever thought possible. And a joy I only truly discovered once we moved outside of the city centre 6 years ago. Since then I take every opportunity given to me to take stock of this most incredible time of year.

Midsummer fantasy’s of white parties in my garden are one enduring feature. I visualise a decked out table below a canopy of trees in my garden, solar-fuelled fairy lights twinkling like winter candles in the leaves. Quiet chatter, uproarious laughter, heated debate. Wraps and bare shoulders, leather sandals and linen. A damask table cloth, champagne glasses and inverted bubbles, platters of evocative food groaning in delight. I almost managed that one year. Mosquitos brought midnight chatter to an end.

By the time the next midsummer arrived, work filled my plate. And work as a chef in France on the day of Le Fête de La Musique means restaurants need all hands on deck.

You see, every midsummer in France, the citizens and students and retirees and everyone in between has the right to play music or listen to and enjoy music for free. Always seen as the activities of the upper classes, a minister in government- decades ago- introduced a day where music is free. In the cities, concerts are held in public places, the streets are filled with buskers and any food establishment with a trading licence will sell food on the streets and have music blaring from loudspeakers. Activities kick off by 3 in the afternoon. By 11pm the streets are a writhing body of moving limbs and spilled beers- and the police begin to herd the masses back into their buildings.

I, on the other hand, escape the fury and madness. I have no desire to get lost in that madness at this point in my life. And while I am truly in awe of the passion that comes from music- watching musicians fill the air we breathe with their undying soul is incredibly moving, I instead crave the open space of my home in the outer ‘burbs, where I see the morning sunlight spill onto my terraces.

For me, summer is pregnant. She is bursting with ripeness, she is full, her belly swollen. Like the moon’s phases waxing and waning, so too are the seasons: summer is the full moon, pregnant, able to give life.

The wheat ears are plump and dry, bursting in their golden glory. Soon they’ll be harvested, winnowing the grain from the husk, detritus scattered about the fields for the storks to feed from, and spiky stalks will cripple the barren earth. It’s this that nourishes us. That grows us.

Wheat. Orchard fruit and berries. Lavender. Poppies. Bees. Humans. We all hover around in lethargic bliss, plump and content. Fruits are picked to become jam, their sun drenched sweetness bottles for the year ahead. The deep enduring scent of lavender is ripest at sunset, and soon will be turned to oils. Bees carry pockets of pollen from here to there, content to carry on the cycle of life in little bags on their tiny little exoskeletons.

By contrast of the sun baked dry fields, the forest is thick, green, lush, as dense as it will ever get. Vines tumble and creep, leaves breathe and the air is humid with moisture. The undergrowth is damp, birds call and crow and chirp in their places of safety.

It’s this life of summer that brings us around the sun. Year in. Year out. I remain Christian in my religious beliefs, yet the magic, the mystery, this Divine Feminine of a reborn earth in summer; my own body that has nurtured and grown, my ability to create from the spoils of this earth: they remain a piece of what I stand for.

And as stifling as the days become, impossible to shed the sweat, the cramps that arrive in the middle of the night, I feel I hold a certain power within my palms, ready to face the seasons that come.

Happy Midsummer, friends. Here’s to another 12 lunar cycles around the sun.

Sending all my love from the cool terrace outside my kitchen as I watch the sun sink into the wheat fields, until next time from the southern hemisphere.

Love,

Me.