one little word: Summer 2014

This winter, I decided my one little word for 2014 would be light.

I did pretty well at chasing it for a couple of months, especially in the winter when looking for the light becomes a survival technique. We chased it all the way to San Diego in March, and then I followed it to Texas in late April.

And then spring came, and though we had some gray days in late May and early June, it has been a summer flooded with light – so much so that I haven’t paid it much attention.

But when I stop to look, the light is everywhere.

It’s in the cloud-streaked blue sky as I walk to work.

It streams in through the big picture window in my temporary office.

It greets me when I walk down to our beach.

And though it hid from us for a while, it eventually blazed out in glory during our vacation in PEI.

We’re headed toward the turning of the year: already the mornings feel a little brisker, the nights a little cooler. The quality of the light will soon shift from summer’s mellow golden to autumn’s crisp, lucid clarity.

I love autumn in the Northeast with a passion, but I also want to savor these last, gorgeous golden days, and watch the transition day by day. I don’t want to miss it. I want to be awake, to pay attention. I want to keep looking for the light.

If you’re following one little word this year, how’s it going? Do you get off track sometimes and then come back, like me?