Last night’s crickets performed their deafening concerto outside my window here in Austin — that ancient sound of summer that transports me instantly to childhood. It’s remarkable how the sound of 10,000 crickets’ chirps can unlock an entire vault of memories: my mother calling us in for dinner, telling us to come home when the streetlights come on, screen doors slamming, my brothers and I racing barefoot across grass though the sprinklers, staying up late and sleeping late, and watching it rain from the safety of the garage, sitting in old webbed lawn chairs commenting about how God is bowling. Tonight I’ll hear different crickets as I arrive for the summer at our Adirondack lake home, but they’ll be singing the same timeless song, the rhythm as reliable as my grandmother’s heartbeat when she’d hold me during thunderstorms at her lake, miles from where we go now.

Bronze Warriors

Summers were our family’s sacred season. My cousins and I would transform into bronze warriors, armed with bottles of baby oil that we’d slather on like war paint, laying out on the dock determined to achieve the perfect tan. We’d sprawl across multi-colored terrycloth towels — mine was an orange ’60s design with yellow fringe that tickled — turning ourselves like rotisserie chickens every 15 minutes. The local radio DJ even told us, “Time to turn over.” The real rebellion came with the Sun-In, which we’d spray with abandon on our heads, convinced we’d emerge as blondes like the Beach Boys we were listening to on the radio. Instead, we looked like tigers with our streaky orange hair, but we wore those stripes with pride.

Firework Memories

The Fourth of July meant sticky fingers from watermelon, seeing who could spit the seeds the farthest, the sulfur smell of sparklers, and my dad with his apron and chef’s hat, manning the grill like a backyard hero. We’d stack our plates high with charred hot dogs, overcooked baked beans, and Grandma’s secret recipe potato salad that had definitely been in the sun too long, but somehow never made us sick. As darkness fell, we’d lie on our backs on the boat, watching fireworks paint the sky, my grandmother pointing out which ones looked like chrysanthemums, which ones like weeping willows. Between the booms, you could still hear the crickets.

Silver Spaceship

My grandparents’ silver Airstream trailer was our gateway to paradise. Parked permanently at the lake, it gleamed like a spaceship that had landed in the perfect spot. Inside, everything folded, tucked, or transformed — a bed became a table, a table became a bench. It smelled of coffee and sunscreen and the particular mustiness of lake living. Grandpa kept his fishing lures in an old cigar box that I was allowed to organize but never touch without him.

Patriotic Period

When my parents finally saved enough for their own lake house, I claimed the back upstairs bedroom and immediately set about destroying it with my 13-year-old’s vision of sophistication: dark navy blue walls (three coats to get it dark enough) and fire-engine red shag carpet that shed like a molting bird. My mother’s eye twitched when she saw it, but she just handed me another paintbrush and said, “Well, you’ll be the one living in it.” My father added, “Looks like the inside of a baseball glove,” which I took as a compliment. Twenty years later, when I was home for Christmas, I found a photo of that room tucked in Mom’s album with a note: “Rick’s Patriotic Period.” They never said a word, but they saved the evidence.

Lake Time

Our summer days unfolded with delicious predictability. Wake up whenever. Pull on yesterday’s swimsuit, still damp and smelling of the lake. Grab whatever was in the fridge — usually cold leftover hot dogs. Then down to the dock, where time moved differently, measured not in hours but in successful ski runs, perfect cannonball splashes, and who could sing the loudest as we played “Hot Fun in the Summertime” on the pontoon’s 8-track player.

Yellow Lightning

My father’s pride was a banana-yellow speedboat with metal-flake sparkles that caught the sun like scattered diamonds. He’d bought it new from a dealer who’d thrown in some fuzzy dice, which my mother immediately relocated to the garbage. That boat was genuinely the fastest on the lake — or at least we believed it was, which amounted to the same thing. Dad would open the throttle and we’d scream across the water, the bow lifting until we were practically airborne, my mother white-knuckling the handle while pretending to enjoy herself. Those were such good times. 

Party Barge

The pontoon was our party barge, though our parties consisted mainly of 11 teenagers singing off-key and arguing over who had to ski first in the cold morning water. The green vinyl seats would stick to our thighs, leaving waffle patterns that we’d compare like tattoos. Someone always brought a guitar they couldn’t really play, and we’d butcher Beatles songs while the sun set, feeling profound about life in the way only teenagers can.

Next Generation

Now I watch my triplets creating their lake mythology. They’ve grown up with the same rhythms on a different lake — morning swims, all-day ski runs, sailboat races, evening bonfires where we burn marshmallows into charcoal and call them s’mores. They raid the neighbors’ fridges with the same entitlement I once did, treating the lake community like one extended kitchen. 

History Repeats

My kids learned to sail in the same little Sunfish I did, turtling it the same way I once did. They still make cannonballs from the swimming platform that send tsunamis over the dock, just as my brothers and I did. And a few times a week all the kids and their friends make a trek to the rope swing where, if you time it just right, you can clear the shallow rocks and land in deep water.

The Last Summer?

It was painful when I grew up and could no longer spend all summer at the lake. An occasional day off allowed me to visit sporadically over a couple of decades. I’m sure my parents were heartbroken when we left their lake nest. Now two of my three just walked across graduation stages, diplomas in hand, futures spreading before them like unmarked maps. They’re filling out job applications, practicing interview answers, ironing clothes that don’t have swimsuit strings. We’ve given them this gift: one last endless summer. The whole family. No internships, no summer jobs, no productivity metrics. Just one last full summer at the lake. And then, we’ll be lonely, wishing they were there all summer, every summer with us. We pray for jobs they can do remotely. 

Future Knowledge

I want to tell my kids what I’ve learned — that they’ll blink and be 40, sitting in some office, trying to remember the exact green shade of the lake in July. That they’ll spend decades attempting to schedule their lives around two-week vacations, jealously guarding long weekends, calculating how many more summers they might have. But you can’t explain this to someone who still believes summer is a renewable resource. My son balked when I said, “You typically don’t get any vacation time off your first six months, and then in most jobs you get two weeks a year.” 

Beautiful Prison

Here’s the thing about owning a lake house: It owns you back. Every June, when our friends jet off to Europe or to explore hidden beaches in Thailand, we return to the same dock, the same view, the same neighbors who’ve watched us grow from sunburned kids to sunburned adults with sunburned kids of our own. I’ve declined trips to Paris, missed opportunities in Prague, said no to safaris and cruises and guided tours of anywhere that isn’t here.

Sometimes I wonder what stamps my passport is missing. But then I watch the same sun set over the same water, and it’s completely different from yesterday’s sunset, and I realize I’ve been traveling all along — just vertically instead of horizontally, diving deeper into the same coordinates rather than skimming the surface of new ones. I would not trade it for all the trips in the world. Time at the lake is precious. Every year when we leave, we count the days till we return.

Counting Summers

What if this is my last summer? Not my last summer breathing, necessarily, but my last summer in this configuration — all three kids here, the family constellation complete, nobody yet scattered by jobs or marriages or the million ways life pulls us from our centers. I cherish every moment.

Perfect Chaos

If it is the last, then it’s already perfect. Not Instagram perfect — real perfect. The kind where my son complains about the WiFi speed and my daughter monopolizes the kayak and my other son leaves wet towels everywhere. Where we run out of milk and someone always drinks the last beer and the neighbors’ dog barks at 6 a.m. Where we play the same card games my grandparents taught me, where we grill the same burgers my father perfected, where we tell the same stories until they become incantations.

Devoted Repetition

My kids tease me about being stuck, about choosing the same view year after year. They don’t understand yet that repetition is a form of devotion. Watching the same water lets you see how it’s never the same water. That knowing every board on the dock means feeling when one needs replacing. That the neighbors who’ve watched you grow up become a kind of family you choose by staying. There are 90-year-olds across the lake that have been on the lake every summer since they were born, never missing one. Two of our three have never missed a summer at the lake. To us, it’s a gift like no other.

Future Understanding

They’ll understand someday, when they’re sitting in some far-off city, successful and homesick in equal measure. When they realize that all their traveling was just a long way of coming home. When they book their vacations for the same week in July, bringing their own kids to add new layers to our sediment of summers.

Paying Attention

This summer — this particular alignment of souls and sunshine — won’t come again. By next year, my kids will have jobs that count vacation days like a miser counts coins. The lake will look the same, but things will never be the same.

Memory Banking

So I pay attention. I memorize the sound of all three laughing at once. I snapshot the sight of them piled in a canoe on the dock for their annual canoe picture. I cherish the chaos of a dozen friends raiding our fridge and catching us up on the rest of their year, and watching them grow into adults. These are the deposits I’m making in a bank I’ll draw from in winters to come.

Present Memory

What would make this your best and most memorable summer ever? Maybe it’s not about making it memorable. Maybe it’s about being present for the memory as it forms. About tasting your coffee while it’s hot. About feeling the dock boards under bare feet. About joining the terribly off-key singing on the pontoon. About saying yes to one more ski run even though you’re tired.

Cricket Wisdom

The crickets already know what I’m still learning: that the best song is the one you sing every night. That beauty compounds through repetition. That summer isn’t a season but a state of grace we’re offered again and again until we’re wise enough to accept it.

Inherited Understanding

My grandparents’ parents left me more than the legacy of each summer spent on the water. They left me the understanding that happiness isn’t found — it’s repeated. That the same jokes get funnier with age. That the same stories improve with each telling. That the same place, returned to with intention, becomes sacred ground.

Tonight’s Symphony

Tonight, the crickets will sing their ancient song at the lake when I arrive. I’ll have a few days of peace and quiet before the rest of the family arrives. Projects need to be done. The internet wires were cut by a shovel and need to be restrung. The boat will need gas. There will be lots of projects to fill up the week. The stars will reflect on water that’s been reflecting for generations before us. And I’ll sit on this lake where I’ve been sitting for 30 years, holding my favorite old coffee mug, knowing that I’m living the answer to my own question.

Best Ever

This will be the best summer ever. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s happening. Because I’m here to see it. Because my kids will be close enough to touch. Because the crickets are keeping time, and time, for now, is keeping us.

Tomorrow’s Coffee

Tomorrow I’ll make coffee again. I’ll sit in this same squeaky 100-year-old wicker chair on the screened porch overlooking the lake. I’ll watch this same water. And it will all be completely new, because I’ll be one day older, one day wiser, one day more grateful for the beautiful trap of staying put, for the perfect prison of a place that’s loved you longer than you’ve loved yourself.

Patient Lake

The lake is patient. It’s been waiting all winter for our return, holding our place, keeping our secrets. And we come back, summer after summer, not because we have to, but because we finally understand that here — this dock, this water, this view — is where we’re most ourselves. The crickets here in Austin have been singing all night, but tonight different crickets will sing the same song, and I’ll be home. Where else could we possibly want to be?

Don’t ignore the mundane, the repeated patterns, the sameness and predictability. Cherish it.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Soon I’ll head to the airport, board a flight, and I’ll be at the lake by bedtime. After a quick stop for groceries, my daughter and I will take a boat across the lake to our little island, and begin our annual summer tradition. I can’t wait.

BIG NEWS: Iconic Moviemaking Artists

For a couple of decades now, I’ve been painting digitally. I love to paint on my iPad when I’m traveling or when I don’t have paints with me. Also, I’m using digital painting to create composition ideas and value studies of my paintings. And though I’m pretty good at it, I want to get better.

We have just signed six of Hollywood’s top digital artists to do a one-day event called Digital Painting Live. Not only will you get to watch people paint, each of them is also a traditional painter, so they will be giving painting advice that applies whether using a brush or a stylus. Imagine watching the men and women who create the backgrounds and characters for movies like Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Marvel movies, Disney movies, and more. These artists are iconic. Check it out at DigitalPaintingLive.com.

Paint Camp in the Adirondacks

On Saturday we’ll have about a hundred artists checking in for my annual Adirondack painting retreat. I’m looking forward to seeing you there. www.paintadirondacks.com

Breaking Tradition

When the triplets were born, I made a pact with myself that I’d do no business travel in the summer. Only twice have I ever violated that pact. But this will be a shorter summer because I’m flying to China on Father’s Day for a three-week speaking and painting tour. Two of my kids and a video crew will be with me, helping create a documentary about this rare trip. I’m not sure if I’ll get Sunday Coffee out or not. So if not, you’ll get a few repeats.