While sitting in the dentist’s waiting room before a recent appointment, I flipped through last month’s issue of a home and style magazine, enjoying one of those rare moments when nothing else needed my attention. I glanced past the opening ads then paused after noticing a feature story entitled “It’s Not Summer Unless . . .” Readers had been encouraged to write in with their favorite seasonal activities, which included such comments as vacationing at the beach, eating popsicles and running barefoot through the grass.
Acknowledging that I enjoy all of those as well (or did at one time), I wondered how I would have responded based on life right now. What is summer for me? It took only a moment to decide—listening to an outdoor concert under the stars.
For the past six years, my daughter Elizabeth has been playing in a local band, one comprised of 30 or so musicians aged 14 to 92, many of whom have nothing in common but a love for their instruments. In her case, it’s the flute with its clear, bright sounds to compliment the saxophones and oboes. Throughout the cooler months, the band practices indoors, but once summer arrives, the real fun begins as their melodies hit the open air.
Each Monday evening, they gather at a different location along the shoreline, entertaining residents with patriotic anthems, classic pop songs and favorite show tunes. And each Monday, we gather with them, folding chairs and sandwiches in tow. For me, it truly is not summer unless the sounds of the woodwinds, brass and percussion echo under a clear sky and beside the ocean waters.
Their director may say that acoustics are better in the music hall, but I’ll sit by the sea any day with the tunes of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Bless America” drifting heavenward. It’s a time when the busyness of the day wanes.
As the sky transitions from the bright blue of a cloudless afternoon to the rosy hues of twilight, boats bob peacefully in the harbor as though keeping time with the slower strains. A lone American flag flaps in the breeze, and the last beachcombers of the day finally retire. This is not a time of silence but of calm, my mind relaxing as I watch the gentle waves, my toe tapping as Elizabeth and her bandmates play on.
Though not especially religious, there is something spiritual about the power of music coupled with the awe of nature that makes me feel closer to God on these evenings, more so than I ever could sitting in a music hall or listening to Spotify. A favorite psalm captures this perfectly, reminding us to “shout joyfully to the Lord, all you lands . . . come before him with joyful song.” And come before him they do with that universal language of music: the elderly French horn player who’s performed all his life, the young clarinetist who doubles as a conductor, my teenage flutist home from college and so many others. A little community under heaven, created to bring us all moments of contentment, reflection, even healing, when once again, nothing else needs our attention.
No, it’s not summer unless we hear the band, harmonizing along with the turning tides and chirping crickets and ending with the director’s parting words as each concert wraps up: “Good night, y’all, and God bless.”
