Weekend Log: The 'fun' issue
However you define it, we need more fun in our lives.
Happy Friday, Midlifers—
June is here, the month that I’ve always considered the Friday of summer (with July being the Saturday and August its Sunday). As with the last day of the workweek that’s not officially the “weekend,” only the tail end of June lands in the official summer season. And while the month straddles both spring and summer, June just gives summer — much the same way Friday gives the weekend. With both, we’re winding down and getting ready for some fun.
Which is a great segue into something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately, the idea of “fun.” Like, sometimes I’m not sure it’s in my DNA. I do not come from fun people. I question whether I am even a “fun” person. I can be fun-ny, but not sure if you’d come away after spending time with me and say, “God, she’s fun.”
First, let’s consider what I’d even classify as a fun thing to do. This week, I cut out of work early to meet a friend who’d offered to drive to Brooklyn to see the author Ann Patchett in conversation with another famous writer. I was dubious about what our rush hour ride through Staten Island into Brooklyn would look like, but lo and behold, we sailed right through. We even had time to grab a quick bite before the event.
I looked up and down the block we’d parked on and spied a fancy ice cream shop I’d been dying to try (Van Leeuwen). And thus — we had the most delicious ice cream for dinner before heading to the most gorgeous old Catholic church that was all stone arches and stained glass windows to slide into a pew and listen to the two women talk about owning bookstores and aging well and the art of letter writing (Patchett does NOT want you to send her a letter a la The Correspondent).
This is my idea of a really fun night. Other activities I might bucket in that category including a walk along the boardwalk, kayaking (or paddling) along some body of water at the end of a summer day, a round (or two) of Rummikub with my daughters and working in the garden. Actually, walking through any garden I think of as super fun.
Off the top of my head, here are some other things I’d consider fun:
Travel
Theme parks
Snowshoeing
Browsing a bookstore
Going to the movies
(Some) Broadway musicals
Sitting somewhere cozy with people I love and talking
Maybe when I was drinking, I was fun in a different way. I was always up for getting a drink and then letting that unspool into many more drinks to follow. I very much adhered to the ethos described so perfectly by Sarah Hepola in her memoir Blackout that drinking was the “gasoline of all adventure.” You never knew what was going to happen—or remember, for that matter.
Since I got sober over five years ago, I’ve had to navigate what “fun” means, since it used to always involve alcohol. Or at least, that’s how I defined fun for a long time.
