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If there’s a soundtrack to summer, Brian Wilson wrote it.
French bikinis, palm trees in the sand and fun, fun, fun … that’s summer. To celebrate Wilson, who passed away in June at 82, let’s tune up our own good vibrations and consider a surfin’ safari … or at least a few of these ideas, all focused on life’s most valuable treasures: our relationships, our experiences and our inspirations.
Think of summer as a metaphoric diving board: What experiences do you want to jump headfirst into for the rest of this year? Whether we like it or not, life is a countdown. We are now more than halfway through 2025, which means we are closer to 2050 than we are to 2000. Now is the time to think about time and how you spend it.
Plan an excursion where you put friendship first. My friend Susan Spencer-Wendel, who died at 47 of ALS, went on trips with each of her children and her closest friends in the year after she got her diagnosis. She knew her time was limited, and she did not waste it wallowing.
“Urgency focuses the mind,” she’d say. She wrote a book on her cellphone, typing it out with her right thumb, the only finger that still worked. Until I Say Goodbye: My Year of Living With Joy hit the bestseller list in 2013. The journalist, wife and mother of three died the next year.
Susan inspired me to plan trips with my friends. In the past few years, my two college roommates and I have shared adventures — a three-day trip to Asheville to start the year in 2024 and two beach getaways in Satellite Beach, Florida, where one bestie has a condo. Plan it, put it on your calendar — and do it.
Get tipsy on a patio. A sign in my house declares: “I’m outdoorsy. I get drunk on patios.” I don’t literally get drunk … and I am by no means outdoorsy. But I don’t miss a chance to sip Sauvignon Blanc and dine al fresco with my friends. Remember that sunlight is a dose of Vitamin D.
Be inspired by an “Ethel” from the past. The Ethel newsletter gets its name from the founder of AARP, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus (1884-1967). Yes, the real Ethel was a dynamo. And, yes, she wore cat-eye glasses. To get inspiration from female powerhouses of the past, I love to tour house museums dedicated to the women who lived there. Two favorites: the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver and the Juliette Gordon Lowe House in Savannah, where you’ll often see a line of Girl Scouts outside. Low started the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. in 1912.
I recently visited the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester, New York, an 1859 goddess of a house with a fancy parlor, fireplaces — one decorated with tiles of sunflowers designed by Anthony — and Anthony’s own cape, typewriter and red alligator bag. Anthony was arrested in this house for voting in the 1872 presidential election (she voted for Ulysses S. Grant). She maintained that the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, defined the privileges of U.S. citizens and therefore included women’s right to vote. The law didn’t think so. Her 1873 trial was a news sensation — though her punishment was just a $100 fine that she never paid.
Women’s right to vote finally came in 1920, 14 years after Anthony’s death. (Some black women found discriminatory barriers to voting until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed.) Today, the women of Rochester honor Anthony every election day. They visit Mount Hope Cemetery and cover her tombstone with their “I Voted” stickers.
Sit on the dock of a bay: “I wish you water.” That was the motto of marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols, who died last year at 56. His best-selling book — Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What You Do — explains how water can bring us to a “meditative state.”
Out my window, I see the serene water of Lake Norman, just north of Charlotte, North Carolina. I get my best creative ideas while staring at the lake.
If you prefer your water shaken and stirred, head to West Virginia, which has recently become the first state to create a Waterfall Trail. Download the digital “Waterfall Wanderer” passport to check in as you hike or walk to the state’s 43 captivating cascades.
Blast some Beach Boys: When Brian Wilson’s passing was announced on June 11, The New York Times’ Gavin Edwards wrote about Wilson’s “12 Essential Songs,” from the upbeat “Surfin’ USA” and “California Girls” to the poignant “In My Room” and “God Only Knows.”
It’s no surprise Edwards ended his list with “Summer’s Gone,” the last track on the Beach Boys’ last studio album, recorded in 2012. “Surrounded once again by the Beach Boys’ harmonies, Wilson returned to his earliest theme — life in the California sunshine — only here it was an elegy for his own youth,” Edwards wrote of “Summer’s Gone.”
The song ends with water — the sound of the waves crashing as the sun sets along the Pacific Coast Highway.
Search for it on YouTube and listen … then let’s jump into summer while the sun is still bright and warm on our faces.
What's been the best part of YOUR summer so far? Let us know in the comments below.
Lily Qian
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