Summer starts today — if you are reading this on Friday, June 20. Actually, summer starts at 9:42 p.m. tonight, that being the moment of the solstice, when the axis of the earth is most inclined toward the sun.
I'm almost reluctant to mention anything astrological — it smacks of magic, witchcraft and the occult, and the solstice is regularly a time when rumors fly, when small Midwestern towns drum up satanism panics, convincing themselves that newly turned gardens are fresh graves.
My summertide concerns are more mundane. At this point, the top of the first hill in the roller coaster, summer is mostly a challenge. What to do with this longest day? And with the three months and two days to come? Ninety-five days until the calendar head-butts into autumn — a season I prefer, honestly, for crisp weather, snug jackets, colorful fall leaves. Summer swelters, it's uncomfortable. And we're supposed to have a particularly hot one this year, beginning ... Saturday, the first of three days in a row in the mid-90s. Thank you, global warming.
Summer requires special attention — if you're not careful, September arrives and, well, where was the fun that summer promised us? Or, rather, we promised ourselves? The picnics? The lazy afternoons? Lost to more work. Dissipated in the time sink of routine.
A reminder that, for adults, summer is mostly nostalgic. You can't beat those summers of the past. The kickball games. the streetlights coming on, the new romance. "The air vibrated," as Julie Cadwallader-Staub writes, "with the sound of cicadas/on those hot Missouri nights after sundown/when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn."
Hard to top that. Hard to top the sense of liberation when school let out. I suspect that when I finally walk away from the word trade, there won't be the same sense of freedom. Just loss and lassitude.
I'm almost reluctant to mention anything astrological — it smacks of magic, witchcraft and the occult, and the solstice is regularly a time when rumors fly, when small Midwestern towns drum up satanism panics, convincing themselves that newly turned gardens are fresh graves.
My summertide concerns are more mundane. At this point, the top of the first hill in the roller coaster, summer is mostly a challenge. What to do with this longest day? And with the three months and two days to come? Ninety-five days until the calendar head-butts into autumn — a season I prefer, honestly, for crisp weather, snug jackets, colorful fall leaves. Summer swelters, it's uncomfortable. And we're supposed to have a particularly hot one this year, beginning ... Saturday, the first of three days in a row in the mid-90s. Thank you, global warming.
Summer requires special attention — if you're not careful, September arrives and, well, where was the fun that summer promised us? Or, rather, we promised ourselves? The picnics? The lazy afternoons? Lost to more work. Dissipated in the time sink of routine.
A reminder that, for adults, summer is mostly nostalgic. You can't beat those summers of the past. The kickball games. the streetlights coming on, the new romance. "The air vibrated," as Julie Cadwallader-Staub writes, "with the sound of cicadas/on those hot Missouri nights after sundown/when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn."
Hard to top that. Hard to top the sense of liberation when school let out. I suspect that when I finally walk away from the word trade, there won't be the same sense of freedom. Just loss and lassitude.
It shouldn't be that way. Why? Leisure is leisure, right, whether you're 7 or 70? It should even be better. An adult with time on his hands and cash in the bank has options a 7-year-old dragging his G.I. Joes through the mud could never dream of.
But it isn't. Maybe you know too much at this point. Maybe you can't just show up at the carnival and thrill to the chance to toss balls at that pyramid of lead milk bottles, already picking out which garish bear will be yours. Maybe you've played this game too many times, and know in your heart, with sorrow, how it always ends.
My schedule today is pretty free — an eye appointment in the afternoon. Nothing dire, just a routine check to make sure diabetes isn't ravaging my eyes. It can do that.
Otherwise, there are flowers to water, weeds to pull, a book project to prod forward like a balky pack animal, and Monday's column to think about. All those things are fun for me — drinking coffee, listening to music, maybe smoking a cigar.
But it isn't. Maybe you know too much at this point. Maybe you can't just show up at the carnival and thrill to the chance to toss balls at that pyramid of lead milk bottles, already picking out which garish bear will be yours. Maybe you've played this game too many times, and know in your heart, with sorrow, how it always ends.
My schedule today is pretty free — an eye appointment in the afternoon. Nothing dire, just a routine check to make sure diabetes isn't ravaging my eyes. It can do that.
Otherwise, there are flowers to water, weeds to pull, a book project to prod forward like a balky pack animal, and Monday's column to think about. All those things are fun for me — drinking coffee, listening to music, maybe smoking a cigar.
In a strange inversion, the typical fun things — lolling on a beach, going to a ballgame — seem burdens, obligations, dull when what I really want to do is stay home and read and garden, garden and read, with breaks for exercise. Is that finally knowing oneself? Or just sad? Or both.
Not that the summer will be without highlights. A new granddaughter to meet soon. The old standbys of the Trail through Time and the Chicago Botanic Garden, where we went Thursday, getting a jump on summer — a big Juneteenth turnout.
Not that the summer will be without highlights. A new granddaughter to meet soon. The old standbys of the Trail through Time and the Chicago Botanic Garden, where we went Thursday, getting a jump on summer — a big Juneteenth turnout.
Once upon a time I looked down on columnists who wrote about the weather. It seemed a failure of imagination. And I can report, on good authority, that is indeed exactly what it is. I shuddered to imagine where this war in Iran is going, or what lies ahead for our poor star-crossed country, having turned itself over to a liar, bully, fraud and traitor. Better to think about those enormous summer cumulonimbus clouds — they were spectacular Thursday. Better to think about low sugar lemonade and a Rocky Patel on the front porch. Dozing on the sofa on the back deck, watching the big green sugar maple leaves vibrate in the zephyr breeze. Bring summer on. We will do the best we can.
The headline of today's post means "Summer has arrived" in Middle English and is taken from the 13th century "Cuckoo Song," the oldest known. round:
Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu.Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu.Sumer is icumen in—Lhude sing, cuccu!Groweth sed and bloweth medAnd springth the wude nu.Sing, cuccu!Awe bleteth after lomb,Lhouth after calve cu,Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth—Murie sing, cuccu!Cuccu, cuccu,Wel singes thu, cuccu.Ne swik thu naver nu!
Or in modern English:
Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
Seeds grow and meadows bloom
And the forest springs anew,
Sing, Cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf.
The bullock jumps, the stag cavorts,
Merrily sing, Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
Well you sing, cuckoo;
Nor will you ever stop now.
Nor will you ever stop now.
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