Five Signs You’re in a Latvian Summer

Latvian summer is not just a season. It’s a deeply emotional, semi-religious experience involving mushrooms, mosquito bites, and passive-aggressive weather jokes. If you’re experiencing any of the following symptoms, you may be in the throes of it.

1. You Escape to the Countryside Like You’re in Witness Protection

By Friday morning, you have orchestrated a full-scale rural escape plan with the precision of a covert military op. Your overnight bag has been in the car since Tuesday. You’re ready to vanish from the city early, late, or with everyone else in the seasonal mass migratory jam out of the city. Forests, meadows, and grandma’s garden are calling your name like ancestral spirits – and you are more than ready to answer.

2. You’ve Developed an Intense Urge to Forage

After rain, you swear you can literally feel mushrooms erupting from the soil. You’re guarding the secrets to the best foraging spots like your life depends on it. You don’t say “I love you.” You just invite them to your mushroom spot and they know. As you pick berries, mushrooms, and herbal teas, you’re filled with a satisfaction that only comes after surviving a winter so long you forgot tomatoes had a smell.

3. You Begin to Physically Crave the Taste of the Season

The mushroom sauce is bubbling in your mind long before you’ve picked them and made the trademark chanterelle or beku mērce. If somebody woke you at 3 a.m. asking what goes with that, you’d instantly mumble “unpeeled first summer potatoes with lightly salted cucumbers” like it’s your own name. The berries you just picked? Add milk and sugar for emotional time travel. The shocking pleasure of how fragrant and juicy garden tomatoes are sends a tingle from your taste buds to the tips of your toes. And the dill? You never forget to add it!

4. You Worship the Sun Like a Solar Cultist

You go outside – on purpose. You notice the corners of your mouth persistently curving up. You attend a greeting-of-the-dawn event like Tautumeitas “Rītausmas koncertrituāls”, “Ezera skaņas” event or the annual midsummer sleepless night. Or you consider it, back down, and get a slight pang of regret. The seaside might be crowded like a can of the famous Latvian sprats in oil already, but you certainly will find a spot to sunbathe anyway.

5. You’ve Started Roasting the Weather Like It’s a Public Official

The weather is always too hot, not hot enough, or switching moods faster than a toddler at the supermarket. You review it like a stand-up comedian on a vacation: “Welcome to the 328th day of autumn, folks.” There’s a picture circulating of someone’s coffee machine displaying an official summer storm alert. Even the police declared summer “officially missing” back in June. The bottom line? You have opinions, strong ones, and the collective summer weather roasting makes you feel seen.

If you’ve felt this – sun worship, berry cravings, and the quiet panic of failing to be the first to hit your mushroom patch – you’re one of us now. Welcome to the cult of the Latvian summer. We meet at sunrise. Bring dill. And don’t forget to hoard the memories like jam in the cellar – it’s what will carry you through to the next one.