It has been said that bad things come in threes.  It’s an old wives tale thoroughly debunked by the mathematician John Allen Paulos, but you’ll never get the conspiracy theorists to disbelieve it especially in the current political atmosphere.

I can understand the personal events that might lead one to believe such nonsense.  It’s been a bad week, a bad month in fact.  One of my superheroes died.  One of my close relatives died.  One of my friends called to say she has cancer.  And, Donald Trump is still president.  It’s enough to make one cry.

 

 

An essay on summertime is in order.  Something to calm the nerves, slow things down, turn this bunched up group of elegiac moments into the comforting nostalgia of times past.

When I think of summer, I think of this story about the Greek cynic Diogenes told by Jennifer Michael Hecht:

We have that great story about him and Alexander the Great, where Alexander the Great has heard of this impressive philosopher and comes to him and says, you know, ‘What can I give you? I’ll give you any gift,’ which was both a sort of tease. Because if you gave him a great deal of money, of course, he’d seduced the cynic away from cynical life. And Diogenes says, ‘Yeah, I can think of something you can do for me. Could you step out of my sun?’ He was, you know, he’s blocking his sunlight. And Alexander the Great once said, were he not Alexander, he would be Diogenes. Because these are two men who both had a tremendous amount of ambition. And one dealt with it by going out and conquering the world and the other by conquering his own ambition.

Conquering one’s ambition. Certainly not something on most people’s to do list. But, it should be. The poet Charles Simic wrote about conquering one’s ambition in his paean to laziness, Summertime.

 

 

Are rocking chairs in this country, I’m asking myself, being rocked on summer evenings as much as they once were? Or do they stand abandoned and motionless on dark porches across the land, now that their elderly owners tend to relieve their boredom by sitting in front of their computers? …

Two dogs, one jumping from the dock into the lake to retrieve the sticks his owner keeps throwing, and the other one looking on in disgust…

To my great regret, I no longer know how to be lazy, and summer is no fun without sloth. Indolence requires patience—to lie in the sun, for instance, day after day—and I have none left. When I could, it was bliss. I lived liked the old Greeks, who knew nothing of hours, minutes, and seconds. No wonder they did so much thinking back then. When Socrates staggered home late after a day of philosophizing with Plato, his bad-tempered wife Xantippe could not point to a clock on the wall as she started chewing him out.

 

 

 

One way to conquer one’s ambition is to get out and about in nature. There is no more humbling act. I’ll admit I’m not much good at it. I do admire those who are. John Fowles essay on The Tree is as close as I usually get. But I’m all about making changes, especially in the current dyspeptic environment.

 

 

For a couple of days I trounced around the forest that surrounds my house and snapped pictures of wildflowers with my iPhone (a device that engenders a love-hate relationship with anyone who has one). I could have simply googled it or asked Siri or Alexis to show me nature, but why not the real thing this time?   Be bold.

 

 

I used this handy online tool to identify the flowers I snapped (click HERE for a wildflower identification tool).

 

 

I’m sure I got some wrong. I knew a few common local flowers (salal, redwood sorrel, foxglove, rhododendron, huckleberry, wild iris). I’m surprised I didn’t see any trillium. The deer must have snapped them before I arrived. The does are giving birth now as we enter summer. I saw a tiny fawn barely able to walk following his mother into the thick undergrowth. I imagined both had stomachs full of trilliums and the roses in my garden that came up missing this morning.

 

 

This atypical experience successfully distracted me from the three (or was it four) bads that threatened to wash me out to sea as I stood on the cliff contemplating my navel while facing the golden Pacific.

 

 

What can I tell you about summertime without submitting to the depression-causing ambition that summertime is meant to dispel? I could write something brilliant and funny like Simic’s essay or something moving and wistful like E.B.White’s Once More on the Lake.

 

 

One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August. We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond’s Extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside of that the vacation was a success and from then on none of us ever thought there was any place in the world like that lake in Maine. We returned summer after summer–always on August 1st for one month. I have since become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days when the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea water and the incessant wind which blows across the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods. A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong I bought myself a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week’s fishing and to revisit old haunts.

 

 

Pity that’s already been done.

 

 

From what I know of Diogenes, the cynic’s life is not for me. I can’t do entirely without that reckless ambition from which Diogenes managed to escape. Nor can I live without the creature comforts of the modern man. One thing I can do is search my memory and indulge my imagination. I will provide a list, in no particular order, of things that remind me of summer. You can add more on your own. If, like me, you can’t get around to all these fascinating activities any time soon, just mull them over. Live vicariously. Choose a few that appeal to you. Close your eyes.

 

 

Then, go back to the same old drab life. Impossible if you do the thought experiment correctly.

 

 

J.M. Coetzee wrote a book called Summertime. Reading it you wouldn’t know it was about summer at all. But it was. Summer is about losing yourself, getting away from the everyday. That describes Coetzee’s book perfectly. At least for me.

 

 

Summertime List

• Graduation
• Booklists
• Family vacations
• Sitting on the porch

 

 

• Indulging in investment porn
• Scouring the summer clearance sales
• Enjoying the beach, ocean, boats, lakes, camping
• Picking berries or other fruits and vegetables

 

 

• Going to Fairs
• Making pies
• Trading recipes
• Entering contests
• Picnicking

 

 

 

• Eavesdropping
• Canning stuff – fruits, vegetables, albacore, etc
• Barbecues
• Celebrating birthdays
• Summer jobs: yard work, paper routes, farm work, summer internships

 

 

• Surf fishing
• Deer hunting
• Making Jerkey
• Hating family dynamics
• Visiting grandparents
• Watching movies

 

 

• Studying insects
• Starting collections
• Baseball
• Minor injuries
• Summer romance

 

 

It’s a long list but it just scratches the surface really. Go slow, it’s the dog days of summer, a phrase that has often been misinterpreted. It’s not a time when dogs lie around panting because it’s so hot, or when they go crazy from the heat. It’s all about a star, Sirius, a star that has been both worshipped and feared. Beware what you worship. Money, beauty, power, fame – you will never have enough. In the words of David Foster Wallace, beware of your default settings. Unexamined, they can kill you.

 

 

 

Summertime, Ella Fitzgerald, Lyrics

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high

Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’

So hush, little baby, don’t you cry

One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing

And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky

But till that morning, there ain’t nothin’ can harm you

With daddy and mammy standin’ by

One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing

And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky

But till that morning, there ain’t nothin’ can harm you

With daddy and mammy standin’ by

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high

Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’

So hush, little baby, don’t you cry

 

In The Summertime, Bob Dylan, Lyrics

I was in your presence for an hour or so

Or was it a day? I truly don’t know

Where the sun never set, where the trees hung low

By that soft and shining sea

Did you respect me for what I did

Or for what I didn’t do, or for keeping it hid?

Did I lose my mind when I tried to get rid

Of everything you see?

In the summertime, ah in the summertime

In the summertime, when you were with me

I got the heart and you got the blood

We cut through iron and we cut through mud

Then came the warnin’ that was before the flood

That set everybody free

Fools they made a mock of sin

Our loyalty they tried to win

But you were closer to me than my next of kin

When they didn’t want to know or see

In the summertime, ah in the summertime

In the summertime when you were with me

Strangers, they meddled in our affairs

Poverty and shame was theirs

But all that sufferin’ was not to be compared

With the glory that is to be

And I’m still carrying the gift you gave

It’s a part of me now, it’s been cherished and saved

It’ll be with me unto the grave

And then unto eternity

In the summertime, ah in the summertime

In the summertime when you were with me

 

Pompeii by Bastille, Lyrics

I was left to my own devices

Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down

In the city that we love

Grey clouds roll over the hills

Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

You’ve been here before?

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

You’ve been here before?

Nothing changed at all

Nothing changed at all

We were caught up and lost in all of our vices

In your pose as the dust settled around us

And the walls kept tumbling down

In the city that we love

Grey clouds roll over the hills

Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

You’ve been here before?

Nothing changed at all

Nothing changed at all

Oh where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins?

Oh where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins?

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

You’ve been here before?

Nothing changed at all

Nothing changed at all

 

Counting Stars by One Republic

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming about the things that we could be

But baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be counting stars

Yeah, we’ll be counting stars

I see this life

Like a swinging vine

Swing my heart across the line

In my faces flashing signs

Seek it out and ye shall find

The old, but I’m not that old

Young, but I’m not that bold

And I don’t think the world is sold

I’m just doing what we’re told

I, feel something so right

Doing the wrong thing

I, feel something so wrong

But doing the right thing

I could lie, could lie, could lie

Everything that kills me makes me feel alive

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming ’bout the things that we could be

Baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be counting stars

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming ’bout the things that we could be

But baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be, we’ll be counting stars

I feel the love

And I feel it burn

Down this river every turn

Hope is a four letter word

Make that money

Watch it burn

Old, but I’m not that old

Young, but I’m not that bold

And I don’t think the world is sold

I’m just doing what we’re told

I, feel something so wrong

But doing the right thing

I could lie, could lie, could lie

Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming about the things that we could be

Baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be counting stars

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming ’bout the things that we could be

But baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be, we’ll be counting stars

Take that money and watch it burn

Sink in the river the lessons I learned

Take that money and watch it burn

Sink in the river the lessons I learned

Take that money and watch it burn

Sink in the river the lessons I learned

Take that money and watch it burn

Sink in the river the lessons I learned

Everything that kills me makes me feel alive

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming ’bout the things that we could be

Baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be counting stars

Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming ’bout the things that we could be

Baby I been, I been prayin’ hard

Said no more counting dollars

We’ll be, we’ll be counting stars