Summer Girl-what is this all about??

Something amazing has been happening.  And I need to step back a few weeks to explain how this amazing thing got a seed of a start in my whirling drunken squirrel party of a brain.

I am a very lucky girl in that I had magical summers up until the time I went to college and got real summer jobs,  I spent my summers in a funky and perfect little house in very small town on a peninsula of land between a bay full of soft sand beaches with water perfect for swimming, sailing and water skiing and the ocean on the west side, a short drive away. Our house was about a 5 minute walk to the edge of Tomales Bay.  We spent every single summer moved into a 2 bedroom house with a porch on the back for sunning, eating and friend gathering.... and a front porch with a couple of sleeping spots and stairs made  for perching when I wanted to read or embroider.  We had no tv, dishwasher or inside washer and dryer.  We spent sunny days at the beach and foggy days hanging with other summer families who became our family.  During the week it was mostly the moms and kids, dads came up on the weekends and so did "company".  Dinner during the week was often platters of cheese, salami and crackers while the moms played dominoes, had cocktails and laughed until it was time to go home. Weekends were large groups on our special beach with boats, sand and water everywhere.  The kids were allowed to roam the streets between everyone's home even in the dark. It was carefree and magical and I know as an adult what a very very fortunate girl I was.  At the time however.....I was surrounded mostly by boys.  My 2 brothers and a collection of the most annoying boys in the world.  So I found ways to entertain myself as a summer girl must do.  I turned to reading, painting rocks, embroidering on shirts and jeans and playing the guitar.  When the other two girls in the group were around, we did those things together but often it was me on the porch with my skinny legs tucked under me, using what we had around to make things or get lost in a book.  I learned to summer this way from my mom and the other moms because they summered like it was their job. I was left to be me, hair unruly, freckles encouraged to catch fire from  days on the beach.  I was barefoot except when I was forced to slip into my flip flops for safety.  My mom made the best apple and blackberry pie and if we picked enough of either, she would whip out a couple of pies before the beach. Pie for dessert and pie for breakfast on the porch in the sun.  Bathing suits and sandy towels were perpetually drying on the porch railing. It was simply the best way to grow up and to spend summer days.  Allowed to be my own tangled teenage self, I was probably the most at home and the most me I can remember.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a cabin in the mountains with some lovely women.   We were there to indulge in our projects, sewing machines, cutting tables and fabric were everywhere.  I happened to grab an embroidery project along the way and pulled that out on the first day.  As I sank into the stitches, I was taken back.  Back to what it felt like to just fall back into myself.  Stitching while we chatted or while we got quiet, I thought a great deal about the gift those summers had given me. I wanted to feel the way it felt when the world fell away a bit and summer was magical.  The more I embroidered, the more I traveled to that place and the more I wanted to recreate what that was like. That summer girl place, where the young carefree teenage girl lived for a few months each year.  Barefoot, unruly hair and sun on my face.  And Grow Wild Summer Girl was born.  First a hashtag on an Instagram post, the idea nagged at me. I shared my thoughts with a friend who jumped at the notion of being a summer girl and she encouraged me to write about it. And then I wrote the first Blog Post (one post back from this one)   http://wildflower57.blogspot.com/2016/05/grow-wild-summer-girl.html  Shared it on social media and something insane and beautiful happened.   A whole lot of you responded. And when I say a whole lot, more than any other blog post I have written..  And I knew that I wasn't the only one......

I wanted to share embroidery, reading ideas, summer thoughts, friendship bracelets and mostly friendships. I wanted to create summer for myself and see who else wanted to summer with me.  Connecting in a place that feels like home to our weary grown up girl selves....We carry the world and lots of worry about life and the people we are raising or love.  We carry so much more than we need to and adult life sometimes sucks the girl right out of us.  I say we take it back.  We can't all quit our jobs and summer like we did at 17 but we surely can give ourselves that place in bits and pieces.   So that is what this Summer Girl thing is all about.  connecting.  Connecting to other summer girls who need to laugh and let go a bit and connecting to ourselves.   Create a tribe of summer girls, exchange gifts, exchange pie recipes, exchange thoughts, exchange pieces of your heart. Whisper to each other and to yourself the things you don't let out in the other seasons , trust yourself to let your truths out and set down your burdens for just a while. Let go and be yourself...Just be a Summer Girl even for an hour at a time.

I've created a place for you to come gather with us..A Facebook page just for all of this wonder and magic..
https://www.facebook.com/Grow-Wild-Summer-Girl-1612348179082997/

I've also just started on Pinterest a Summer Girl Board and will be adding in some Summer Girl activities and reading list boards, all will start with Summer Girl...(I already started an Embroidery board).
https://www.pinterest.com/barbarawiggins/

So join us, become your Summer Girl, grow wild a bit.   There is no age that defines a summer girl, we are all the same in summer.  The Facebook page is filling up with lots of other Summer Girls from everywhere! Bring your friends, create a tribe, start summering and please please please share your stories and projects.  That is what we do as Summer Girls, we connect and we remember what that girl we sometimes leave behind.  Laugh hard, get sunshine on your face , play dominos and have cheese and crackers for dinner once in a while. Put down your phone, pick up something that feels like a deep sigh to your soul.   The world will look much brighter when you tuck your legs under you and settle in just a bit.   Welcome home Summer Girl. I'm so happy you are here.
<3 Barbara

Grow Wild Summer Girl

I remember her well.  My teenage summer girl.  I was fortunate enough to spend my summers a house built by my great great greats in a small village near the beach.  We had a group of other families that spent summers with us in their houses built by their great great greats and we spent our days together at the beach, picking blackberries, making jam, playing dominos and guitars late into the summer nights and just doing what comes next in summer.   There was lots of time to entertain ourselves so I spent hours embroidering chambray shirts, painting rocks, making things like friendship bracelets and reading on my bed on the porch.  My sheets were delightfully mismatched, laundry was hung on the line and sandy towels hung over the balcony every day after the beach.  No TV...lots of quiet time for a girl to spend just being who she was.  The way she came to this world with her true wild guiding her.  I yearn for that feeling, of just being absorbed in the business of summer.  Barefoot with messy hair, my freckles glowing from days in the sun.  My mom's blackberry pie for breakfast, reading late at night out on the porch in my bed with a flashlight.  The time when I was just me, before life got a hold of me and shook me all around.  I miss my summer girl.....

I've decided it's time to bring her back in every way that I can. I've decided to take back my summer and bring back that girl.   While I cannot leave my job or spend hours a day, every day at the beach. I can grab onto moments of summer girl pursuits.  And I have enlisted a few friends to do the same, I've gathered a tribe and it took just a moment of sharing my thoughts with a few friends who shouted "I'M IN" without hesitation because  clearly we all need this.  I'll be sharing ideas and the ways that we join together  from where we are, to live a summer girl life.  It will be different for everyone but I know that there is a way to find that part of you that you've been missing.  We take care of so many other people and things, life gets a little hectic and heavy sometimes.   Put it down just a bit, the should dos and business of being busy. Remember what summer is for. Your kids, they can entertain themselves without you for a bit, or if they can't...train them.  Teach them to be summer kids.  Take off your shoes and walk in the grass, find a book you want to read and curl up in a cozy spot and give yourself an hour.  Float in water, paint rocks and have pie for breakfast.  The world will not come apart if you fall back into yourself. I promise...it just won't.  

There's a wild, wild whisper
Blowin' in the wind
Callin' out my name
Like a long lost friend
Oh, I miss those days
As the years go by
Oh, nothin' sweeter than summertime
And American honey

~Lady Antebellum!  

I'll be sharing lots of good summer girl ideas but my first is to gather a reading list and make some  friendship bracelets for my tribe. There are tons of tutorials and YouTube videos out there..I'm starting with this one

http://www.the-red-kitchen.com/2012/01/lots-of-knots-friendship-bracelet.html

Come with me won't you, gather a group of girlfriends who also are feeling a bit like adulting has taken a bite out of them.  Find ways to immerse yourselves even for small pieces of time in what it was like to just be you.  A summer camp for your soul....Can you imagine if all the girls you know decided to do the same.  I think your world and mine would be a better place full of happier women giving themselves over to just being who they are and doing things that make them happy .  Less social media, more reading with flashlights.   I desperately need to let go of all the stuff that has been weighing down my world, not quit it all but put it in it's place.  Get right with myself and embroider my jeans and for goodness sake.... lighten up.  Back to the girl I have missed so much.  Let your hair free, turn your face to the sun and listen to that whisper calling your name. I will be doing a series of blogposts about the Summer Girl Life....I hope you will come along with me and summer the heck out of this Summer.  Welcome home summer girl, grow wild and free.

<3 

B