|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
I remember when summer started in May.
The giant, sliding classroom windows were open, and even without a hint of breeze, the hallways got a fresh-mown grass smell. The sun warmed stacks of paper on metal sills, the edges of a year’s worth of essays and test scores browning in the bright sun. Dust danced in the light while my teacher droned on about the history of the kings and queens of France.
We were just back inside after gym class, maybe after giving up on a real field hockey game and just fencing with the sticks, or maybe after the gym teacher dropped bags of playground balls in the stifling gym and told us to go at it. Anarchy ruled. He was done with the school year too.
I remember the smells, colors and feelings because the date on the calendar didn’t matter; my brain downshifted, slow-rolling into the lazy warmth and possibility of summer.
And now I feel like I’m missing all of it.
Summer gets a late start these days, in part because of adulting responsibilities. A bell doesn’t ring me out of work at 2:30, and no part of my day involves gym class.
And then there’s life in a cold state.
Summer doesn’t get rolling until late June, and our latitude means our longest day is past before the heat hits us. And as much as I love what April, May and June rain did for my flower garden and my well, I don’t love forces conspiring to make me miss summer magic.
We’re already burning daylight and we’ve got memories to build.
I need to get past my panic about summer’s dwindling days. It’s already August, so it might as well be Labor Day, and if it’s Labor Day, then it’s basically Halloween, and we’ll be hunkered down against howling winds until next June.
The teen me looked forward to everything and skipped past nothing. The adult me discovered it’s possible to live through something and still miss it.
It’s time to downshift.
The fireworks in Potts Harbor were spectacular. Fireworks have always sparked my wonder. I like to think about people seeing them for the very first time, without context, without prior knowledge, and how they must have been overcome with delight.
The stripers are in and fishing’s afoot, though I’m always reminded there’s a reason it’s called fishing and not catching. How incredible to do a thing for the joy in the doing, without concern for the result. I’m more outcome-driven, but even my reward-motivated brain knows the prize of seeing great blue herons take off from the water’s edge, bald eagles flying low and slow over the lawn, and cormorants drying their wings on floats in the bay. I’m keeping my eye out for sea dogs.
Who watched the World Cup? And if you didn’t watch the games, did you watch the fans?
I love rooting for underdogs, and this tournament had lots of heart-thumping triumphs over Goliaths. I wish I’d been drinking a Boston bar dry with the Scots or rowing up an escalator with the Vikings. (And I really wish the Viking row videos didn’t cut off after a few perfect seconds so I could see the hilarity when the escalator stacked the seated rowers on the floor above.)
People working together to make silliness contagious and laugh at themselves are a gift. Huge crowds singing and cheering in sync are stunning. People reaching out with kindness, sharing their delight at just being a part of something bigger than themselves, are a miracle.
They’re not missing a thing. They’re cementing memories.
Cook’s put on quite a show with the Motor Booty Affair concert and fireworks on the point. People showed up in their ’70s disco finest and went wild when the band took the stage. Grandparents taught grandkids how to groove to the funk. People swayed and jumped and did the sprinkler and the lawnmower. (For anyone who hasn’t danced with me or the talented folks I saw at Cook’s, all you have to do is mime being a sprinkler and mowing the lawn.)
When the band declared their love for “smiling faces and bouncing butt cheeks,” I knew my tush was exactly where it was supposed to be — dancing to ’70s covers with 500 of my closest friends.
Here I am back at my desk, because summer doesn’t erase responsibility and I have deadlines stacked up on my to-do list. But adulting has privileges if I decide to take advantage of them. So tomorrow I’m playing hooky in the afternoon to sit myself at The Dolphin’s bar and watch the World Cup semifinals in community. The USA is out, but all the goodwill and joy the fans bring lives on, and I want to be in that glow.
I know summer’s rolling on, with me or without me. So I’m putting a spring in my step that keeps my butt cheeks bouncing.
I’m not missing it!
