If Memorial Day weekend officially ushers in summertime, Labor Day weekend is the closing bookend to it. You’ll be receiving this Stretch on Labor Day Monday and I hope you’re outside soaking up the warm sunshine doing something you love. As you celebrate, Tom and I will be in the beginning stages of thinking about… kind of… sort of… maybe… sometime soon… moving toward… getting ready to begrudgedly start the process of closing up our summer cabin in the Sierras and winterizing it to survive the rugged snows and blistering cold that will surely come.
Even though I love spending hot afternoons floating in a cool swimming pool, hiking on sunny mountain trails, and enjoying long, warm evenings on the porch, I always look forward to Fall and on Labor Day weekend, I can sense the coming change in my bones just off in the distance.
It’s been said a million different ways that the secret to life is being able to roll with the unending changes that make the world go ‘round. The changing of the seasons is a visual reminder that everything’s in motion, everything changes. The good and the bad. The easy and the difficult. The windfall and the shortfall. Embracing each “easy season” with the knowledge that it will surely change as well as each “difficult season” with the knowledge that it will surely get better, is a masterful way to navigate life.
And so on this Music Monday (always the first Monday of every month), as we think about packing our bathing suits away and pulling our sweaters out of mothballs, I’ve chosen The Summer Knows, the theme song from the movie, The Summer of ’42. It’s become a classic standard sung by Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, and Tony Bennett. I gave you two versions this month. The first one performed by Nancy LaMott is a favorite of mine, especially this time of year. The second is a dazzling performance by the very young Jackie Evancho masterfully accompanied on the trumpet by Jummane Smith. The last verse is bittersweet and always seems to ease me into the shoulder month of September, the Fall of the year, and the next season of life. I hope it does the same for you.
This holiday week we are recycling a favorite MMS from last year.
Our new subscribers will enjoy Katherine’s story and the lessons she took from the experience.
And to all of our MMS readers who have been loyal subscribers from the beginning…
you’ll remember why we love seeing the world of business and life through the eyes of The Lioness.
Nancy LaMott
Jackie Evancho
The Summer Knows
“The summer knows. The summer’s wise.
She sees the doubt within your eyes.
And so she takes her summer time,
Tells the moon to wait and the sun to linger,
Twists the world ’round her summer finger,
Let’s you see the wonder of it all.
And if you’ve learned your lesson well,
There’s little more for her to tell.
One last caress.
It’s time to dress,
for Fall.”
