Season 2, Column 3

Friends, I come to you with ill tidings. Quite possibly you already know. The keening of the owl, the wailing of the lone coyote, the coyoting of the lone whale, all ominous portents that either indicate the grimmest of hours for mankind or that one has become so intoxicated they somehow transported themselves to a Sea-World in Nevada. In this case, it is the former. Unless you are reading this from Sea-World Nevada. In which case you’re probably stoned, too, because I’m pretty sure I just made it up. Anyway. It is with the utmost gravity (we’re talking, like, 9.907 m/s² here) that I inform you that at approximately 12:01 AM on September 4, 2007 summer died.

Yes, that quintessential child of spring, haven of heat wave, vanguard of vacation, surveyor of sweat, and cash-cow of Big Ice Cream, the season we fondly refer to as “Jesus, can a brother get some a/c up in this grill?” is gone. For the past few weeks it’s been barely hanging on, attempting to fool us with record temperatures and a dryness rivaled only with Prohibition or Bizzaro-UT (where the orange is white, the Beacon is read, and everything is teetotaltastic!). But come Labor Day, it was all too apparent: summer has fall-en.

Now some will equinox on wood and say that the season is still alive and well, but really, I think it’s pretty simple: school is back, summer is dead. And, for me, this is a grievous loss indeed. So, as a good psychologist once told me in the post-medication phase but before the significant-uppage-of-medication phase of my ongoing treatment for “life related symptoms,” it’s important to let go. In that spirit, join me in mourning summer.

Summer, I shall miss you. I’ll miss the freedom from expectation, for a day could be filled to bursting with nothing, and yet only nothing would be lost. I’ll miss the freedom from purpose, for then the future waited patiently on some far flung horizon, instead of glowering at me every day away. I’ll miss the freedom from obligation, for in summer all one has to do is work (of a labor sort) and play and wait, all three of one’s choosing, all three of so little import, in the scale of one’s what will be’s that one can feel free to live without the fear of falling with no chance to get back up.

I’ll miss the abstract hope, for when one did look ahead it was all ideal, it was all “this semester will be different, this time I won’t get drunk, laid, and subpoenaed (not in that order) on a biweekly basis, this time the grades will work for me, this time every fumble will be an incomplete pass and certainly not within the first two minutes of the game.” In the summer, one could look forward to school, and not feel as if the sentiment was analogous with the urge to give oneself a transorbital lobotomy. And, really, who doesn’t miss the ability to walk around without pants… AND NOT HAVE TO MENTION IT CONSTANTLY IN PRINTED FORM?!?!

(Ok, so I don’t miss that. I have needs too! Perverse, obsessive needs, damn it!)

But there’s also the knowledge that, as we grow older, we rapidly run out of summers. And, soon enough, we’ll exhaust our supply and be forced to stare into the gaping maw of professional career, jumping in and never looking back. After that last summer, we’ve nothing but retirement, death, or leprechaun acquirement to save us from a lifetime of work. And, hopefully, that won’t be such a bad thing. But as another summer goes, so goes more of our youth. I think I speak for many of us when I say, summer, for better and worse, you will be missed.