June is Bustin’ Out All Over: Wanna Join?
Dr. James Mellon
When I was looking for a theme for the month of June, I wanted something that would reflect the free-flowing, carefree sense of summer. I remember as a young boy in Philadelphia I couldn’t wait for summer vacation. No more school! Those lazy days were free to play stickball or just hike down to the neighborhood creek with a bunch of friends and lay around on old tires, skipping over rocks, laughing, and watching the hours fly by. As a young kid, there wasn’t much to take seriously or fret over. You’d leave the house in the early morning and sometimes not return home until dinner (if you even remembered it was dinnertime). My father had a “special” whistle that would pierce the wind and my brother and I would come running. After dinner, we’d be back on Charles Street (where we grew up) climbing trees waiting for the sun to set and the moon to take its place in the sky above. Then we’d all climb onto our front steps and talk about the night and try to spook one another with stories that today would seem mild, but to our 1960s sensibility were considered quite frightening. I always loved a good scare on a dark summer night. It was a way to bond as a neighborhood.
I remember one summer we built a fort out of cardboard and played all day and night in this empty refrigerator box, decorating it on the inside and out with old pieces of rugs and broken chairs. Then the next morning when we returned, there was a man sleeping in it and we all freaked out as we entered the box and realized we weren’t alone. I don’t think I’d ever run as fast as I did that day, trying to escape the man in the box (who, by the way, slept through the whole thing).
Remembering these summer stories always brings a sense of wonder to my mind. I loved the openness and the creativity of our imaginations. Whether it was looking up at the planets and deciding if there was life on Mars or just catching lightning bugs in jars and watching them light the night on our bedroom night tables. We did punch holes in the tops of the jars, so they could breathe. Just sayin’. It was a great time to be a kid.
But you know what? It’s also a great time to be an adult.
It’s a great time to be in a constant state of wonder. It’s a great time to have FUN! Regardless of what the world might be going through (and there’s a lot on that list for sure) we are always at choice to find the wonder, the fun, the excitement. Our minds are an incredibly reliable source of adventure, daring, excitement...so many things to see and do and experience. As I step into June, I am determined to remember who I was as a child on those streets in Philadelphia. I’m determined to open my heart and my mind and spend time playing, skipping over rocks, breezing down the river on a rubber tire and remembering who I am. I am an infinite possibility waiting to be realized. I am the particularization of the majestic quantum field of pure potential. And while I know those last two sentences might sound a bit dense, is it any more dense than looking up at the sky at 8 years old and wondering if there are people living on Mars? I don’t think so. Not really.
So, let’s take June back and declare it the month of FUN! Fabulousness Unfolding Now! Wanna join me? Okay, meet me on the corner tonight and we’ll check to see what’s making all that noise up in the neighborhood tree. Or maybe we can kick up a game of stickball until the sun goes down and wait for the whistle to blow. Oh...I just heard it. Gotta go! Enjoy JUNE!