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 astronomical — 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 astronomical — 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. This game is harder than it looks.
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 vision. 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. This game is harder than it looks.
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 vision. 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 that. 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. And in truth: I have no fucking idea. Nobody does. Though no shortage of those pretending to be Nostradamus.
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.
And I was going to look up that word but decided to read your column first,
ReplyDeleteI plan to enjoy hot, sweaty summer to the fullest, taking in as many outdoor festivals and markets as I can. And what a great excuse for a must-have ice cream cone to cool off from the heat and humidity.
ReplyDeleteI for one love summer where simply sitting outside in the shade can bring on a dripping sweat.
ReplyDeleteWe only air condition one small room . for the dog.
In chicago each day in June has a temperature in the high 90s or even above 100 degrees as an all-time record high . many of these record highs were reached decades ago. the averages have only crept up a few tenths of a degree in the last 30 years.
while not disputing global temperature rise ,on the contrary acknowledging it. its not something noticeable in our everyday lives. the changes in climate and weather, even extreme weather events are mostly subtle and not incremental. the average human does not possess the perception to feel or notice the change. anecdotal experience like living through hurricanes, heat waves and floods are not accurate indicators of on average change. if we as a species didn't have very accurate scientific measuring capacity and record keeping. we would not know climate change was happening.
a serious matter, not to be taken lightly or misinterpreted
Did I miss where you mentioned something astrological? All that I saw described an astronomical phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteTypo. Fixed, thanks.
DeleteYes, but now I find myself wondering why astronomical phenomena smack of “magic, witchcraft and the occult.” I know – picky, picky, picky.
DeleteSo nostalgic. I can dreamily recall summers almost year by year until I moved out of my parents' house after college. Red Rover Red Rover and Simon Says, bike riding, lemonade stands, the pool from morning 'til night, the boys, kisses in the car in the dark, the music on the transistor radio and the 45s on the record player. I also remember clearly the shock of that first summer of full time employment when there was - and never would be again for 40 years - no long summer break! Different now, but still - and these days especially - need ways to unplug. We marveled at one of those huge cumulonimbus clouds last night at dinner on our screen porch.
ReplyDeleteIn memory of summers past, I'll listen to the Beach Boys, until it doesn't feel fresh and clean anymore, which will probably be in a few days when we're all dragged kicking and screaming into Iran. At that time I'll realize that life doesn't really bounce like my memories of youth. I'll then switch to another favorite of mine -- grouchy old grunge-master, Neil Young. I may need an interlude of Jackson Brown, as an attempt to remain sane.
ReplyDeleteI like to kid that our wedding anniversary is June 21, "the looooongest daaaaay of the year." Darling wife Eve still likes the wisecrack (or did, the first 45 times).
ReplyDeleteGarden and read, with breaks for exercise and coffee and some acrylic or watercolor painting with music is my very similar version of knowing myself at last, but also a bit sad because I would like to be able to do some of those youthful things again, like kickball and bike. Thankful I have a six year old grandson I can go to his ball game tonight and soak in all the pleasures I see on his face as if they were mine!
ReplyDeleteI feel a bit more literate after reading your post today; read it twice.
ReplyDeleteI've had enough of all the noisy cuckoos loudly "singing".
When you live in a house for many years, you can mark the passing of time by the sun. In late June, it rises above the trees to the northeast. It reaches its apex of the entire year in early afternoon, at the corner of the screen porch, almost directly overhead…the highest point of the entire year. It sets behind the houses to the northwest. The sundial reads high noon. Sunlight is the strongest, on the longest day of the year,
ReplyDeleteMemorial Day is almost a month gone. June is running fast--like the red sand in Dorothy’s hourglass in “The Wizard of Oz.”--and now July and August are on their way. As always, this will be the second-fastest summer ever. The fastest? Why, it’s next summer, of course.
No matter when you grew up, there were always more summer songs than songs for any other season. Gershwin’s “Summertime,” “All Summer Long,” by the Beach Boys. “Summer in the City.” Summer was what you counted the days until, when the school year was winding down . When you were ten or eleven, it seemed to be, literally, “The Endless Summer.” You even had the luxury of acute boredom, on a hot and bright August day. “Ma! I got nuttin’ to DO!” Shut up, kid. Go ride your bike.
Now, all these decades later, summer feels too short to cram everything into it, and to do all the things you want to do. Even in retirement, something has been lost. The long days and warm nights are still there, but they have somehow become shorter and feel rushed. Summer hasn’t changed — we have. Summer becomes almost a blur. It is not summer’s fault. It’s our own…and it’s just what happens in the aging process. To everybody. The other seasons race by, too.
An inescapable truth: You now have one less summer in your life than you did a year ago. A year from today, you will then have one less summer remaining than you do right now. Summer is what it is because we are all too aware that it is finite. It does not last forever. It is no longer endless. Even when another summer begins, you know it will too soon be over.
And our supply of summers is also limited. The time eventually comes when you begin to think...Last dog? Last cat? Last car? Last roof? And inescapably…the last summer? Enough of that noise. I’ll think about it next January.
Royko once wrote about how the last evening of summer is one of the most melancholy times of the year. School starts tomorrow. Darkness comes earlier. Nights are getting longer. The air is getting cooler. It’s September. The shadows are longer.
Just one more inning of softball, okay? Keep on hitting, and maybe the game, and the evening, will last forever. There is an unmistakable feeling of sadness in the air. But not yet. Not now. It’s only late June. So all that is for later, when the days are racing toward fall…and winter.
It’s here…it’s The Longest Day again. Enjoy your summer. Savor it. Every bright sunny day. Every late sunset. Every lovely evening. Gaze at a full moon and exclaim: “Oh, summer night!”
Gotta say, climate change delivered the coolest Spring that I can recall. A couple miles from the lake it barely got above 60° on many days. I should have relished that more, because I am no fan of hot weather. It seems that we get the happy medium of say, 68 - 75 so infrequently.
ReplyDeleteWhile fall has always been my favorite season, it leads too quickly to winter for me to enjoy it quite as much as I used to without thinking about its brevity.
Does this comment sound like "the food sucks and the portions are so small?" 😉
However one appreciates it, I'll take the occasion of the solstice to wish the EGD gang a Happy Summer, anyway!
Ballgames are still a treat!
ReplyDelete