"Summer Time, and the Livin' is Easy..."
....and man, it's true. Thank you, George Gershwin, for capturing the season just so.
In this year of 2008 -- with $4.00+ gasoline, food prices on-fire, and housing in a major slump -- when there is good, solid, non-partisan reason to be worried (and I mean worried like you got the shingles), it's hard to deny to pleasures of Summer time.
Tonight provided a small but meaningful sample of Summer time cheer. It came from so many places.
The sight of bicyclist after bicyclist cranking away on all sorts of two-wheeled gear in the Upper Valley. And not just the hot-shots I saw this morning at 6:30am riding like the peleton at the Tour de France. It was the regular folks, on upright bikes peddling like mad to reach the top of the hill.
Or me scootering with kids after dinner, popsicles and ice creams in-hand, as we attempted to out-do one another in little tricks and turns on the asphalt.
Or watching Papelbon close out a 5-0 game for the Boston Red Sox against the Arizona Diamondbacks with fastball after fastball.
Or reading to Jacob and Noah tonight without a care about the time. A few extra pages of "Asterix and Obelix" or "Harry Potter" would not matter. There was no homework to complete, no school schedule to meet.
Or, finally, the cool breeze coming throughout the house. Every window is open. The children are asleep. The woods are silent but alive with green.
Summer time is also unstructured time, when the clock fades just that little bit. It ticks but does not tock. The insistent rhythms from the rest of year -- gotta do, gotta go -- fade just enough.
Summer time. The light remains, and we find new time to play, frolic, and enjoy.
Now, it's not all good. As the Boss reminds us...
The girls in their summer clothes
In the cool of the evening light
The girls in their summer clothes,
pass me by
This summer, my family will celebrate the 90th birthday of one of our dear friends, a man who remembers when vacationers to Maine traveled there by steamer, not car.
No season is not perfect, but in these woods of northern New England, Summer provides a bit of heaven that kinda-oughta be preserved, if only to be released in the darkest winter days.
You made me think of ee cummings:
"leaping greenly spirit of trees
and the blue true dream of the sky"
Posted by: terry | July 16, 2008 at 09:14 PM