Summer’s sun stretches her gold-plated rays down from the baby blue sky and through the maze of leaves landing on the fading green blades of grass in seemingly each yard I pass by. I drive through our neighborhood squinting from time to time as those rays sometimes find their way through the windshield. During the three or four minutes it takes to make the drive from the turnoff into our neighborhood to our driveway I pass three or four dozen houses on both sides of the street. Occasionally, a sprinkler will spew water skyward then down in a rhythmic pattern across a yard as I drive by, a synchronized sport, of sorts, for the weary. Now and then, someone will be in a yard riding or pushing a lawnmower trimming the excess grass the ground has yielded since the last mowing time. Mostly though as I pass through the neighborhood, I notice most of the yards are empty.
It is summer and no one is outside.
That realization makes me a bit sad. Back in my day, summer was so much fun. Before I begin to reminisce on summer days back on red clay Georgia hills now faded into a monochrome memory I stop myself from going down that road. Maybe I am too nostalgic for my own good. Maybe I was bitten by some bug a long time ago that somehow idealizes times and places as more special than their worth to others. After all, rehashing old memories only seems to reinforce what I want to believe and while some who shared similar experiences might enjoy that trip it only seems to alienate those who can’t relate. To them I imagine they see those with other memories and experiences as out of touch with how things really are now or how they seem to really be to them. Two types of people, two types of thinking, yet more similar in how they view things than either type would ever admit. Still, the realization that summer is here and no one is outside sinks in and I can’t help but wonder why nowadays we seem to abandon summer when it finally comes.
I rarely see a natural tan anymore, one so deeply bronze I can’t help but speculate when I see one just how many hours the person wearing it has spent outdoors. No one chases and catches bugs anymore; the kind of bugs only seen in the summer, funny-shaped bugs, speckled with vivid vivacious colors and with weird antennas and more legs and wings than it seems they can easily manage. Wide, sprawling yards no longer seem to have a home plate at the edge of the walkway with first base being a rock by the driveway, second base being a shrub with funny smelling leaves at the yard’s center and third base being a tree near the edge of the woods anymore. Folks no longer go barefoot outside for any length of time other than maybe to step outside onto the front steps to briefly speak to a neighbor, and then only if they can’t find their flip-flops or house shoes, so when they do go shoeless the bottom of their feet is so tender they come hopping back into the house vowing to never step outside the house again without some form of shoe.
Yet I know, too much sun is not good for you, and neither is extreme heat. And I know some people weird out over the sight of bugs of any kind. And I know baseball can be a tedious and hot sport to play in the summer and besides someone might drop a bat on their knee and get hurt. And I know the risk of stepping on something that might really hurt is a legitimate concern, splinters and bee stings are never pleasant.
So, nowadays we flip on the TV and watch a mind-rotting “reality” show because we have hundreds of channels to choose from even if there’s still nothing worthwhile to watch. Or we open up a laptop and stick our nose there and whittle away time as if this is what we were made to do. Or we sit anxiously beside a cell phone or some other electronic device with some cool exotic name waiting for a response from a text message we sent only a minute ago frozen at the thought of doing anything else until we get a response and slowly freaking out when the response doesn’t seem to come quick enough. Or we listen to the drone of the air conditioner pumping cool air into each room of the house as it fights off any heat which may try to come into the house and wilt us into a puddle of goo while all along a voice inside us faintly contemplates why life is passing us by so quickly.
And I know the inevitability of things. I know how change comes with the passing of time. I know how every generation has to do it’s own thing and learn it’s own lessons. Seasons come, seasons go. Time marches on. Clichés become clichés because some truth rings through them.
Still, it’s summer. We’ve shaken off the chill-lined gray clouds of winter. We’ve left behind those short days of daylight where we longed for a warmer time and a sunnier day. And we got what we wished for. Isn’t this what you hoped for on December 28 when the cold rain saturated your shoes and made your feet feel like blocks of ice? Wasn’t this what you hoped for on February 2 when you mumbled and grumbled how you hoped a groundhog predicted the weather better than the professional weathermen on TV as you, without gloves, scraped a thin layer of ice from your windshield? Wasn’t it on March 11, as you dug your winter coat out of the closet again, that you imagined red Kool-Aid and fireworks and June bugs and swimming and an Independence Day picnic with hot dogs and cold watermelon? Wasn’t it then you remembered that summer days had just enough sunlight for you to do all you wanted to do in a day before darkness came for an overnight stay? Wasn’t it then that you recalled the summer sky at dusk changing colors from blue to purple to black with silver stars overhead winking at you like a shameless flirt? Shouldn’t now be the time to loosen up some? Shouldn’t it be the time to look caution square in the eye and say, take the rest of the summer off, I’ll see you in the fall? And then shouldn’t it be the time that, being the rebel you are at heart, you actually walk to the mailbox without any shoes on your feet?
My drive through the neighborhood ends as I pull my car into our driveway and then into the garage. As I unload my work gear from the day, the garage door closes behind me and I feel that crush of cool air from the air conditioning seeping into my skin like some indispensable injection intended to slow me down and keep me off my feet for awhile. Once inside the house, I locate the laptop and turn it on. Before getting cozy, I search and seize the remote control hitting the power button to open up another world; a world distant yet not quite real and just removed enough from the real life I know that I keep going back to it. Finally, I place my cell phone on the arm of the chair and make sure the ringer is turned on just in case someone tries to reach me. As the laptop boots up I flip through the onscreen guide on the TV in hopes of finding something to run harmlessly in the background so as to not distract me enough to stop me from what I am doing. Now and then, I glance at my cell phone as if my looking at it will reassure it, but more likely to reassure myself, that I am here if needed. And just before all these things come together to form the rest of the day, I can’t help but wonder why we really don’t make of summers what we used to…
5.19.2010
Summer Reading List
Gulf Shores, AL, May 2010
The waves slam against the damp sand and dissolve into an almost calm pond of water and foam at land’s edge. Before we could absorb that process more waves came ashore and then a moment later, even more waves follow. Walking in the ankle deep water grew interesting as we tried to watch every step and time our strides with the next wave washing in yet mostly all we could do was feel a bit dizzy and use all our power just to remain steady on our feet.
Walking away from the water our feet touch dry white sand, toasty warm from the heat of the sun. We take our seats under an umbrella and proceed to pull out books and read. For me, the reading is something to do in between watching the passing parade before my eyes.
I place my finger in the book on page 36 and hold my place as I watch a child make his first visit to the beach, wide-eyed in sights and alert to the various sounds of this place he had been told about. Later, I watch some brave soul charge into the water and try to leap above the wall of waves rushing for the shoreline only to be defeated by nature’s will. Now and then, someone strolls by with a dark tan and confident stroll making me wonder from their complexion and their countenance if this place, or somewhere almost like it, is a place they call home. At the edge of the water, an older couple walks by slowly and so close to each other they appear to be leaning on one another and I imagine they have made so many visits here they lost count many years ago and look back at all those years and all those visits now and laugh, and smile, about it all.
I dig one of my feet into the sand, down into the place where it is clammy-cold and darkly-damp, and burrow it out enough to catapult sand onto her foot. She has been diligently reading away while I have been preoccupied with everything else going on around us. She looks up from her book, uses her feet to toss some sand back onto my feet, smiles, and returns to her book. I smile back, reopen my book, and continue reading as well.
The warmth of the sun makes me drowsy, so I place my finger in the book on page 39 to hold my place. I close my eyes and sense a pale red glow all around me. I sluggishly fight the urge to fall asleep. Overhead, a plane chugs by and the sound causes me to open my eyes just so I can read the sign the plane is pulling behind it. I discover it is the same local restaurant sign advertising fresh shrimp the plane has been dragging the last half hour. I take off my sunglasses so that the colors I see are the true colors of what is here. Each time I do this, I am spellbound by the blue-green of the water at this distance and how as it stretches out in my line of vision it becomes inseparable with the color of the sky at the same distance.
And so it continues this way for hours. Plastic sand buckets and shovels, water wings, boogie boards, beach grass, sand castles and picking through the sea shells washing ashore. Dump some sand on her foot; expect some sand tossed onto my foot; read a page or two of the book in my lap; then watch the people go by. The woman on her cell phone walking by and demanding from the person on the other end of the phone line, “Guess where I am right now.” Then there’s the group of people just arriving on the beach with their cooler, their elaborate folding chairs and over-sized, neon colored towels who begin their search for just the right spot to settle down for a time. And the guy who walks and from just a glance you can tell that he forgot sun block and will realize this without a doubt himself tomorrow morning in a very painful way.
I look up and notice she has stopped reading. I place my finger on page 44 of the book to hold my place and look more intently at her. I see the freckles on her skin that the last few days in the sun have made more visible. Lost in thought, she looks straight ahead at the waves crashing in, never noticing I am watching her. Instead of the book in my hands, I now try to read the look on her face. The serious look she has makes me think she is thinking our time here will soon be over for now. Soon, we will have to return back to the everyday world and the challenges, worries and opportunities it holds. Just thinking what her thoughts might be makes me reconsider the look on her face as more reflective than I originally thought.
I dig my feet into the sand again and toss some out onto her feet. She breaks her gaze away from her thoughts, looks at me, smiles and tosses some of the sand back onto my feet. I smile back then we both open our books and begin reading again. Some birds fly around in a mid-air dance while others run around on their skinny legs staying just out of reach of the cool water. Beyond this, the ocean rocks water onto the shore pushed by never-ending rows of waves creating a symphony loud enough to drown out the world we have to return to soon enough.
The waves slam against the damp sand and dissolve into an almost calm pond of water and foam at land’s edge. Before we could absorb that process more waves came ashore and then a moment later, even more waves follow. Walking in the ankle deep water grew interesting as we tried to watch every step and time our strides with the next wave washing in yet mostly all we could do was feel a bit dizzy and use all our power just to remain steady on our feet.
Walking away from the water our feet touch dry white sand, toasty warm from the heat of the sun. We take our seats under an umbrella and proceed to pull out books and read. For me, the reading is something to do in between watching the passing parade before my eyes.
I place my finger in the book on page 36 and hold my place as I watch a child make his first visit to the beach, wide-eyed in sights and alert to the various sounds of this place he had been told about. Later, I watch some brave soul charge into the water and try to leap above the wall of waves rushing for the shoreline only to be defeated by nature’s will. Now and then, someone strolls by with a dark tan and confident stroll making me wonder from their complexion and their countenance if this place, or somewhere almost like it, is a place they call home. At the edge of the water, an older couple walks by slowly and so close to each other they appear to be leaning on one another and I imagine they have made so many visits here they lost count many years ago and look back at all those years and all those visits now and laugh, and smile, about it all.
I dig one of my feet into the sand, down into the place where it is clammy-cold and darkly-damp, and burrow it out enough to catapult sand onto her foot. She has been diligently reading away while I have been preoccupied with everything else going on around us. She looks up from her book, uses her feet to toss some sand back onto my feet, smiles, and returns to her book. I smile back, reopen my book, and continue reading as well.
The warmth of the sun makes me drowsy, so I place my finger in the book on page 39 to hold my place. I close my eyes and sense a pale red glow all around me. I sluggishly fight the urge to fall asleep. Overhead, a plane chugs by and the sound causes me to open my eyes just so I can read the sign the plane is pulling behind it. I discover it is the same local restaurant sign advertising fresh shrimp the plane has been dragging the last half hour. I take off my sunglasses so that the colors I see are the true colors of what is here. Each time I do this, I am spellbound by the blue-green of the water at this distance and how as it stretches out in my line of vision it becomes inseparable with the color of the sky at the same distance.
And so it continues this way for hours. Plastic sand buckets and shovels, water wings, boogie boards, beach grass, sand castles and picking through the sea shells washing ashore. Dump some sand on her foot; expect some sand tossed onto my foot; read a page or two of the book in my lap; then watch the people go by. The woman on her cell phone walking by and demanding from the person on the other end of the phone line, “Guess where I am right now.” Then there’s the group of people just arriving on the beach with their cooler, their elaborate folding chairs and over-sized, neon colored towels who begin their search for just the right spot to settle down for a time. And the guy who walks and from just a glance you can tell that he forgot sun block and will realize this without a doubt himself tomorrow morning in a very painful way.
I look up and notice she has stopped reading. I place my finger on page 44 of the book to hold my place and look more intently at her. I see the freckles on her skin that the last few days in the sun have made more visible. Lost in thought, she looks straight ahead at the waves crashing in, never noticing I am watching her. Instead of the book in my hands, I now try to read the look on her face. The serious look she has makes me think she is thinking our time here will soon be over for now. Soon, we will have to return back to the everyday world and the challenges, worries and opportunities it holds. Just thinking what her thoughts might be makes me reconsider the look on her face as more reflective than I originally thought.
I dig my feet into the sand again and toss some out onto her feet. She breaks her gaze away from her thoughts, looks at me, smiles and tosses some of the sand back onto my feet. I smile back then we both open our books and begin reading again. Some birds fly around in a mid-air dance while others run around on their skinny legs staying just out of reach of the cool water. Beyond this, the ocean rocks water onto the shore pushed by never-ending rows of waves creating a symphony loud enough to drown out the world we have to return to soon enough.
5.07.2010
Amidst Car Fumes and Checkered Flags
One day this past week I happened to be walking from one building at my work to another. I ran across the husband of a co-worker. Other than just exchanging pleasantries I really don’t know this man at all. But for about ten minutes we stood and talked despite the fact that I had plenty of work I needed to be doing at that moment.
The topic we mostly discussed was dirt track car racing. I admit it’s been years since I have been to a dirt track race. I do remember those times well though. Hot summer nights, cigarette smoke hanging in the air between the crowd and the giant lights reaching toward the sky, twangy country music filtering out over scratchy public address speakers, hard concrete bleachers and enough noise to not be able to hear the person sitting right next to you. Down below sat an oval track where a big truck watered down and packed dirt turning it into red Georgia mud while cars, some looking as though they had been through the pummeling of a gauntlet, drove round and round slinging that water and dirt mixture behind them with each lap.
He eventually talked about some of the more celebrated drivers of the past like Bobby and Donnie Allison, Neil Bonnet and others he had seen. This gentleman regaled me with some tales of local drivers and local racetracks going back into decades long gone. I shared a tidbit now and then even making him aware of one or two distant relatives who got behind the wheel and spent weekends on their second job, driving dirt tracks for fun. Mostly though, I spent some time listening to this man’s memories and experiences.
I admit the discussion piqued my interest some in those dirt track memories. Maybe I’ll locate a book that discusses some of those days and I can read it and relive those memories in some way. Maybe I can find some clips on YouTube that will remind me of those dirt track days.
What I really took away from these ten minutes in the middle of the day was how I enjoyed those ten minutes. I enjoyed getting to hear someone else’s memories. I enjoyed seeing the gleam in the eyes of someone as he talked about something he obviously enjoyed. I enjoyed getting to know someone better. Now this gentleman and I will have a starting point for discussion when we run across each other again.
Digging deeper though I think I probably needed this ten minute conversation. This week has been a tough one. Friends in other parts of the state and the South saw their homes and businesses wracked by flooding. Work has run long almost every day and been a bit more stressful than normal. A co-worker’s mother passed away after a brief illness Monday morning. This followed the news of the death of someone else that we worked with a good bit. His death was accidental and totally unexpected. It all has been a reminder of how life can change in a moment. It has been a reminder that serious stuff happens and sometimes stings and how sometimes it all piles up to make a body begin looking for the next bad thing to happen. It just seems to turn up the noise level to whatever else is happening in life, sometimes even muting the important things. So while maybe I enjoyed the discussion for various reasons, maybe that discussion was something I needed at that moment.
Amidst the recollections of car fumes and checkered flags was ten minutes of not thinking about the bad things that seemed to be beating down on my brow. It was ten minutes away from my phone and email and the other work I am trying to complete but can’t seem to finish because the phone won’t stop ringing and the email won’t stop coming. It was a nudge for me to slow down enough to listen because life is passing by. Of course, the trick is to listen not to the compiled noise of a bunch of engines drowning out all the important things in life but to focus my listening enough to hear above it and to hear the cheering crowd, the individual engines striving to get to the finish line and to also hear and comprehend what the person standing next to me is saying.
The topic we mostly discussed was dirt track car racing. I admit it’s been years since I have been to a dirt track race. I do remember those times well though. Hot summer nights, cigarette smoke hanging in the air between the crowd and the giant lights reaching toward the sky, twangy country music filtering out over scratchy public address speakers, hard concrete bleachers and enough noise to not be able to hear the person sitting right next to you. Down below sat an oval track where a big truck watered down and packed dirt turning it into red Georgia mud while cars, some looking as though they had been through the pummeling of a gauntlet, drove round and round slinging that water and dirt mixture behind them with each lap.
He eventually talked about some of the more celebrated drivers of the past like Bobby and Donnie Allison, Neil Bonnet and others he had seen. This gentleman regaled me with some tales of local drivers and local racetracks going back into decades long gone. I shared a tidbit now and then even making him aware of one or two distant relatives who got behind the wheel and spent weekends on their second job, driving dirt tracks for fun. Mostly though, I spent some time listening to this man’s memories and experiences.
I admit the discussion piqued my interest some in those dirt track memories. Maybe I’ll locate a book that discusses some of those days and I can read it and relive those memories in some way. Maybe I can find some clips on YouTube that will remind me of those dirt track days.
What I really took away from these ten minutes in the middle of the day was how I enjoyed those ten minutes. I enjoyed getting to hear someone else’s memories. I enjoyed seeing the gleam in the eyes of someone as he talked about something he obviously enjoyed. I enjoyed getting to know someone better. Now this gentleman and I will have a starting point for discussion when we run across each other again.
Digging deeper though I think I probably needed this ten minute conversation. This week has been a tough one. Friends in other parts of the state and the South saw their homes and businesses wracked by flooding. Work has run long almost every day and been a bit more stressful than normal. A co-worker’s mother passed away after a brief illness Monday morning. This followed the news of the death of someone else that we worked with a good bit. His death was accidental and totally unexpected. It all has been a reminder of how life can change in a moment. It has been a reminder that serious stuff happens and sometimes stings and how sometimes it all piles up to make a body begin looking for the next bad thing to happen. It just seems to turn up the noise level to whatever else is happening in life, sometimes even muting the important things. So while maybe I enjoyed the discussion for various reasons, maybe that discussion was something I needed at that moment.
Amidst the recollections of car fumes and checkered flags was ten minutes of not thinking about the bad things that seemed to be beating down on my brow. It was ten minutes away from my phone and email and the other work I am trying to complete but can’t seem to finish because the phone won’t stop ringing and the email won’t stop coming. It was a nudge for me to slow down enough to listen because life is passing by. Of course, the trick is to listen not to the compiled noise of a bunch of engines drowning out all the important things in life but to focus my listening enough to hear above it and to hear the cheering crowd, the individual engines striving to get to the finish line and to also hear and comprehend what the person standing next to me is saying.
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