This Summer, Go Low-Key with Your Goals

In defense of quiet, easy Summer days

Rose-tinted childhood summer memories have got a lot to answer for.

So many of us remember the good ol’ summer days through this lens. We remember playing, perhaps swimming if we had a body of water in which to do so, eating ice creams and generally enjoying the good weather. We remember endless blue skies — even those of us who grew up in the UK — picnics, saltwater, and sand.

It’s this view, I think, that shapes how we think summers should be as an adult. The problem is, this is 2023 not 1983. Consumerist culture has taken all those notions we had of summer and turned them into something purchasable or perhaps even worse, Instagrammable.

Nowadays, you’re not allowed a low-key summer. You have to have a perfect one.

You feel like you have to jet off somewhere hot and beautiful. Or create incredible Summery food platters. Or host a lavish BBQ every week. Or attempt to craft precious memories for our own children under inexplicably organized conditions like fancy summer sleepovers or marquee birthday parties that look like mini weddings.

All in pursuit of that childhood summer feeling that probably played out in your backyard with little more than a garden hose. At least it did for me.

For my part, I’m back in the UK for the next few months. I’ve got a lot of personal shit going on, from fertility tests and potential treatments to a Portuguese residency application. Emotionally, this is going to be one tough summer.

I’ve also, for the next few weeks, got something in the region of 1000 miles to cover for a wedding in the south, a funeral in the east, and house-sitting for a friend in Scotland. Aside from the funeral, these are wonderful things, but they will also be tiring and busy.

Once they’re done, I intend to have an incredibly low-key summer. One with little to no pressure other than reaching these incredibly loose summer goals:

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I want to eat outside at least once a week. I’m not talking about a fancy hosting situation here, I’m talking about hauling my pajama’d ass outside with my cereal bowl or a eating sandwich sat on the grass. And I’m only aiming for once a week because I’ve lived through enough British summers to know that once a week is realistic. If I make it three or four times, I’m doing well.

I also want to take a glass of wine or beer outside as many times as humanly possible. There is something beyond delightful about that first glass in the early evening. Perhaps I’ll take a small plate of olives or cheese too. And I’ll sit. Talk with my husband. Read a book. Listen to music. And soak up that outside goodness.

I want to swim in the sea, river, and paddling pool with my nieces. I’m renting a house close to them this summer so I can spend as much time with them as possible before they’re too old and too cool to hang out with their auntie Charlie. They’re both water babies, as am I, so we’re getting into that water together.

I want to take a step back from work in order to assess it. Being an overly-ambitious independent writer means I’m constantly playing catch up with myself and my writing. Sometimes there is no room for reflection or creativity. This summer I intend to carve out room to manifest both. I’ll still be here, I’ll still be writing, but when I can make a cut to my schedule, I will.

I will not force myself out of the house on every blue-skied day. I call this British Weather Training. As soon as the sky is blue, we all rush outdoors because we’re far too aware that good weather in this country is fleeting. But I don’t like the pressure of that. I’m a pale-skinned Viking descendant. If I spend all day outside, I burn and get a headache. And if a blue sky day comes on a day when I’ve got a heavy workload or I’m in a TV-watching mood then damnit, I’m staying indoors. No one can force me otherwise.

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These are not fancy goals. They are probably not Instagram-worthy. They are also incredibly flexible. I have no intention of beating myself up because I had a busy work week or didn’t jump in a river with my nieces.

But that’s the point of a low-key summer. It’s low-pressure. It’s enjoying the good, warm weather (fingers crossed) as it comes. It’s not forcing anything.

This summer, for the love of God give yourself a break. Take a low key-summer. Keep your goals loose. Enjoy it when you can, don’t sweat it when you can’t. Summer comes every year, each one doesn’t have to top the last.

BRB. That paddling pool calls.

This article was inspired by Savala Nolan’s article In Praise of the Low-Key Summer.

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