Debra Mugnani

We’ve just passed the Summer Solstice and summer is in full swing.  The longest days of the year are great for relaxing and listening to great music both out and about and on your own musical devices at home.  I’m really loving Pandora. All I have to do is search for a song I’ve always loved and it creates a station of music with similar traits.  The past week I’ve been toggling between  a James Brown  and a Ladysmith Black Mombasa station.

I vacationed in Paducah, Kentucky last week visiting family in the country.  It was great to be so close to nature.  I encountered cardinals, bluebirds, cottontail rabbits, a  woodchuck, and best of all lightening bugs. I got a kick out of taking an excellent vinyassa yoga class in a heated room with country music playing, too.  I also felt really lucky to catch a  local Community theater’s final performance of “Annie.”   The Marketplace Theater group did a fine job with the show with an amazing 13 year old dancer/singer in the starring role that made Sarah Jessica Parker so famous years ago.   The musical’s  theme still resonates today, it was written about the depression era and the thought of “The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun” is one that is also most welcomed to hear during our sluggish economic climate.

The pace of life is slower in Kentucky.  In conversations, people are actually comfortable with silence between thoughts.  It felt good to slow down but also suprisingly a little stressful.  My usually  fast paced lifestyle was challenged by the more relaxed environment.  After a few days, I adjusted and enjoyed some of life’s simple pleasures like sitting on the porch, sipping a tall glass of cool lemonade, listening to the birds and finally reading Tuesdays with Morrie, a great little book that is all about savoring the simple pleasures of life.

On my return flight I overheard a conversation between some fellow passengers.  A Tennessee gentleman who had exemplified Southern hospitality a few minutes earlier by graciously offering us his change when we had none for the airport vending machine, was speaking with a family on their way to San Francisco for vacation.  He’d visited here before and offered them suggestions on what they might do here.  I smiled at his excitement over a sunset dinner cruise he’d taken on the San Francisco Bay.  He said, “We found this cruise right near a restaurant called Scoma’s, S-C-O-M-A-S, a great Italian place on what they call, Fisherman’s Wharf.  They took us right there under the Golden Gate Bridge and we got some beautiful photographs at sunset!  Man, those are memories we will always treasure!” He is just one of thousands of tourists who visit San Francisco each year and bring home treasured memories.

So when it’s all said and done, it’s all good. It’s all good:  photographs at sunset on a bay cruise, spotting fireflies at dusk on a warm humid evening in Kentucky or sipping  icy lemonade while listening to the sounds of the cicadas under the stars, they are all simple pleasures we can enjoy during the long days of summer.  It’s raining in San Francisco today but all we have to do is remember that the sun will come out come what may or take pleasure in knowing that the reservoirs are filling up and it feels more cozy inside when it’s wet weather outside.