Just the other day in June we marked Summer Solstice and the First
Day of Summer but already, with August having made its insidious appearance, we
are preparing to bid summer goodbye. “Back-To-School” ads are all over the
place, touting everything from crayon packs and pourable glue to 2-hole manual
pencil sharpener and 2-ply facial tissue pocket pack. Most of the products have
“scholastic” added in front of their labels, although it is anybody’s guess how
a glue, other than being sticky, can also be scholastic.
How can this be? How can summer come and go so blindingly fast?
It’s not fair. So here’s a list of things we can do to make summer stay longer,
or at least linger, until we have repaired our body and soul from too much
work, worry, stress and the unbearable irony of, well, life.
1. It all depends on the
kids, really. Refuse to go to school until the second week of September. Easier
said than done, you say? Maybe but it’s not as difficult as you think. Contrary
to what they may say in public, teachers (the tenured ones anyway) will be
delirious with joy if they don’t have to see their unruly, screaming wards
until two or three weeks later than usual. The real problem is with the parents
who had been praying for schools to reopen right after Independence Day
celebrations. How to convince the parents? Simple. Start doing chores around
the house with a single-mindedness that borders on the creepy. Do the dishes
and then do the same dishes again. Do the laundry. Clean the kitchen and the
bathrooms and the garage until they glow like fireflies. Haul out the garbage
and if there is no more garbage to haul out, create some. In short, astound
your parents with your conscience. They will hold you tight and not let you go
until they must because it is September 15.
2. Fill up the hummingbird
feeders with nectar. In a magical, mystical way, if hummingbirds linger, so
will summer.
3. Drag the parents and the
family cat to the local park and make them feed the ducks or the squirrels. If
there are no ducks or squirrels, do some jumping jacks with the cat and wow
everyone around with feline and human dexterity, even if a few scolds threaten
to call the police for something about being a public nuisance. What’s summer
if it isn’t also a little subversive?
4. Improve your vocabulary
by memorizing a long word (at least ten letters) for each of the 26 alphabets
in the English language. Use them at family meal times (all 11 meals per day
must be with at least one member of the family) until mom and dad are convinced
that sending a budding Brown (Dan) or Bellow (Saul) to school (that nips any
talent in the bud anyway) too early will be criminal.
5. Talking about eating, be
sure to include in your menu blueberries, green bananas, yogurt sprinkled with
tiny heirloom tomato slices, carrots dipped in hummus, and the occasional
partially-cooked eel. No parent will have the heart to replace this
super-healthy food habit with what passes for food in the school cafeteria,
until they must, starting September 15.
6. Swimming. Ah yes,
swimming. What’s summer without swimming? Whether it’s in the ocean or the
neighborhood creek, don’t begin your swimming adventure before the third week
of August. Dangle the prospect of an Olympic medal before mom and dad. Although
you come close to drowning more than once, you convince them that you are the
next Missy Franklin or Michael Phelps. Even if your ability in water isn’t
persuasive, your contagious enthusiasm is. Surely it is out of question,
particularly since you are not drowning anymore, to return to school before
September 15, yes?
7. The starry nights of
summer are enlivened by the thrilling sight of shooting stars. With mom and
dad, you marvel at the celestial objects streaking across the sky one warm and
late August night. As you start naming the various meteor showers and the
constellation they spring from, your dad tells you that unless you shut up, he
is going indoors. You become silent and hug him and tell him astronomy is in
your blood and if only you can hone your expertise for just three more weeks,
unencumbered by homework and tests, you can become another Tycho Brahe. Tyke
who? he asks, alarmed. You sigh. Dad is embarrassed. Alright, he says, alright,
but if your grades don’t move north by Novemmber, all bets are off.
8. For the rest of us, start
reading the Collected Works of William Shakespeare and the Collected Prose of
Woody Allen, alternating between the two. Othello followed by Without Feathers.
Midsummer Night’s Dream followed by Play It Again, Sam. Once you are done, pick
up “Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust but stop when you come to the
part about madeline and memory. Thereafter, simply indulge in madelines until
your memory turns upside down and you begin to see dead people. Even if time
doesn’t stand still, you will find that it has started to crawl. And that will
be enough to add a few more weeks to summer.
Summer was always meant to stay longer than it does, at least in
these frenetic times. Unlike the weather, however, we can do something about it.
The list is limited only by the imagination. And isn’t summer the season of
imagination?
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