As the summer approaches everyone starts to pose the question “what are your summer plans?”. My response to this question this year was “Heading to the South of France, going to the beach and making ice cream”. Normally like most Europeans, I flee the city during the months of July and August, despite Paris in August being my favorite time of year, for a change of scenery. This year I did some traveling and I hung out with friends but what I wanted to do at my core was go to the beach to satisfy my inner Pisces and make ice cream as an ode to my childhood nostalgia. 

I am a California girl through and through but, from 3 – 9 years old I lived just outside of Atlanta, Georgia where, every summer my grandfather would pull out his electric ice cream maker, a ton of rock salt and ice and we would make vanilla ice cream, I’d play with my friends on the back porch, while waiting, probably impatiently, for the ice cream to finish. Then we all grabbed bowls and filled them high with vanilla ice cream and whatever sprinkles and candy was lying around. It’s a core memory that I often look back on and smile. From the combining of the ingredients in the kitchen to entering a meditative trance watching the machine slowly churn. 

Keeping with the theme of this season, intention. I got to work charting my perfect summer. Starting with a trip to Turkey in June, Mallorca with friends in July, a visit from my Niece in August, all punctuated by ice cream. And not just any ice cream, flavors that would excite my palate and delight my creativity. For far too long living in France have I been pigeon holed into the same fifteen-ish flavors at every ice cream shop and this summer that had to end. In the end my desire for nostalgia turned into some valuable lessons I plan to apply to life. 

Don’t Take Life Too Seriously: Easier Said Than Done 

In general I take things seriously but if you ask my friends, I am not someone who takes themselves or life too seriously. Levity and playfulness are important keys to my success. However, what I noticed from my summer of beach going and ice cream making was that my life in Paris had somewhat calcified into this daily routine that was sprinkled with fun rather than filled with it. 

Now, as an adult woman in her late 30’s, I don’t expect everyday to be filled with sunshine and roses, I’m not that naive. What I was shocked to find is that despite me building time into my schedule for research and spaces to be creative, you can’t schedule creativity. It comes when it comes and more often than not it doesn’t come from being too tired from everything else during the week to actually exercise the creative muscle. Inspiration dries up and life takes over. And yes, I have to pay my French taxes but maybe it’s ok if I don’t work 7 days a week anymore and give myself an actual break. 

In a world where we value being booked and busy or out and about, over being calm and relaxed, creativity doesn’t have space to breathe. 

I Need a Bigger Kitchen: A Parisian Paradox 

Cooking and feeding people brings me joy and I haven’t been able to really enjoy cooking for a while because of my damn Parisian kitchen. While I don’t live in a Parisian shoe box, I have a kitchen like I do and that has to change. Cooking has been a part of my life since I was a little girl. So many of my core memories revolve around being in the kitchen with my mom and my grandma baking up something delicious or preparing a meal for family. It’s time to bring back. Despite having done my best to dress up my kitchen, to make it a place I want to be. It mostly serves as a way to get food in my mouth as quickly as possible and even that feels exhausting when you have to wash dishes by hand. 

Before this summer I thought maybe I just didn’t enjoy cooking anymore. Maybe it was something I had grown out of because it felt like a chore, not a pleasure. The truth is actually simpler: the set up is awful. It turns out, stuck in a dark 5ftx5ft square, where one false move and you’ll either bring down the entire organizational system or give yourself a concussion, probably both, isn’t conducive to feeling a desire to create culinary masterpieces for yourself or anyone else. 

Whether the solution is changing my layout or changing my apartment, a change needs to be made. And a dishwasher is in my future. 

Low Stakes Play is Necessary: Not Everything Has to Perform 

Experimenting with flavors over the summer has allowed me to break out of my constantly connected bubble and just relax into play. In conversation with my mom I mentioned my ranking of things I like in the ice cream process and I even shocked myself. The ranking is as follows: 

1. Coming up with the flavor 
2. Creating and decorating the pint 
3. Eating the ice cream 

The majority of what I like about making ice cream isn’t the actual ice cream itself but the exercise in creativity that precedes it. 

Coming up with the flavor is yes, my way of rebelling against the strawberry, chocolate, speculous, amarena hell I’ve been trapped in but it’s also just fun. Figuring out which flavor combinations go best together, what will bring out the lavender in this, what pairs well with that and finding new and exciting flavor pairings I’d never heard or thought of, rose and lime anyone? The Persians perfected that one! The joy of having a low stakes place to mess up, to make Cheetos ice cream just to see what it would taste like was a refreshing change of pace from my, creativity as livelihood, way of living. 

The pint jars came later. About three ice creams into the process I said to myself, “These flavors need their own pints”. And within a few days I had 50 pint containers delivered to my door. What made it that much better? They were white cardboard and I could draw on them. And draw I did. Cute drawings, ugly drawings, drawings that made sense, ones that didn’t, ones that looked like a four year old did them, goats with three tongues. I didn’t care, I was just in it for the simple pleasure of getting out my markers, getting into that meditative trance, putting down my damn phone and just coloring. I am pretty sure I’ll be in my 90’s and still love to color.

Indulge: Myself and What I Actually Want to Do

French summers are oftentimes high pressure with the number one question from June being “What are your plans for this summer?”. Staying in Paris during the month of August is often looked down upon, the entire year seems to revolve around this one month and what your plans are for it. Whether it’s a long standing tradition to mosey to your home in the countryside or a new destination each year, Parisians cut bait and run like the city is on fire. 

This year, I followed suit. Turkey first, Mallorca next and then settling in the South of France for the remainder of my days. While I do understand the allure of a place unknown, a new destination, a place I’ve yet to experience. I never want to do it in August. I have the impression that the entire world is on vacation in August and the crowds, the heat and the forced vacation time goes against everything that feels right and good in my soul. As someone who doesn’t have children, I don’t feel the need to follow the prescribed August vacation mandate. Thus, I opted for seaside ice creamer for the summer and indulged in what I truly wanted to do. Which was really nothing at all. 

The lessons I am taking away from this slow summer are really more about ensuring my own success. Success in my business, success in life and reframing what that means. If success only means being able to spend two months of my year at the beach, churning ice cream then I think that’s a pretty damn good life. If churning ice cream leads me to revelations that in my creative business I don’t have enough time for creativity, and hopefully I go back to Paris and make time for that creativity, then that’s a win in my book. While I may not be able to spend my days with my natural curls flowing, a make-up free, sun-kissed face and bare feet, I can take with me the levity, the time for low stakes play and figure out a bigger kitchen. So often we naturally get caught up in the societal flow of things that we forget to check in and see if we are truly aligned with our desire or if we’ve just been swept up with the tide. No more! Whether it’s nostalgia or a life lesson, this girl just wants to sit on the back porch and impatiently wait for the ice cream to be ready.