I neglected to make plans for the summer. This obviously should have been worked out months ago. According to one market research firm, 56 percent of Americans surveyed in May were planning to take a vacation this summer, despite overtourism and sky-high prices.
All around me people are busy relaxing. Somehow, they arranged to spend their weekends in July at the beach and are away in August. Maybe they found a cheap share on Fire Island or met an older couple who lets them use their place on Fishers in exchange for watering the plants.
Clearly, they were probably on it last summer, which is the new spring, when all the good places get got.
As for me, I didn’t key into any of the warnings — the lists of must-try ice cream pop-ups and which beach towels to buy. The internet sets up a constant swirl of seasonal prep and appreciation — get ready, get ready, enjoy it, indulge, it’s the last gasp — and then suddenly, it’s gone, and it’s time to review the highs and lows.
Maybe seasonal shape shifting has knocked me off my pegs. Winter is snowless, spring is short, summer seems to have stretched outward, its oppressive heat hovers over the full calendar year like a threat. Now — who knew? — August is here and I haven’t begun to make the most of the season.
I haven’t been to the beach or the pool or the lake. The Weber grill is covered in dead leaves and there’s a wasp nest back there that I’ve been meaning to call someone (who?) to remove. I’ve spent no time on a boat, on an outdoor chaise or nestled in a hammock. I’ve worn neither gingham nor seersucker nor floppy hat. I forgot to obsess over Lyme disease, but it doesn’t matter because I have yet to venture into a summer meadow or grassy field.
Here I should be frank and confess a personal flaw, which is that summer is my least favorite season. I do not like insects or wet sand lodged in the crotch of my bathing suit. I have harbored a strong dislike of summer activity dating back to a series of failed attempts at camp during childhood. My brothers still torture me with a story my dad used to tell about my misinterpreting his directive to “just pee in the ocean” when I was 4 years old.
It’s easier to tune into the season on Instagram and watch other people’s summertime joy. Sun-kissed figures sweep across decks, boardwalks and porches in flowy sundresses and shorts that are short once again. They enjoy summers that are beyond my capacity.
Maine takes up a lot of my mental space, probably because I don’t go there. People in Maine have undiscovered hamlets where everyone has been coming for ages and they barbecue amiably with authentic locals at night. Others belong to Old Families with a private island off the coast tucked into the family tree, a place where only family have been allowed to go for hundreds of years. On this island they have sailboats and clambakes and croquet and break out periodically into song.
These kinds of summers are plainly out of reach. The 1 percent of the 1 percent don’t need to plan summer because they have it built in. They have a place on the Vineyard or in the Hamptons. They belong to a club where everyone speaks golf and there’s a long waiting list even for those who can afford it. Summer is when the maw of income inequality gapes wide open and only people who summer are allowed in.
I am not summer people, something hard to admit because summer is also the pushiest season, the most insistent that it be reveled in publicly. I’m not sure I have the time or energy required to pursue it, at least not in real life. I marvel at people with second homes when I can barely stay on top of my one, and summer traffic stresses me out.
And what did I miss, really? I got my insides churned to the point of nausea by the summer’s political cycle without going to Six Flags. The Olympics arrived online, no need to sweat it out in oversubscribed Paris. My nonexistent summer was if nothing else cheap.
Nor did I screw up anyone else’s (that is, my kids’) summer by skipping out on the season. For years, I had to trouble over Camp Gap, the yawning empty when camps no longer want your kids and school has yet to pick up the slack. But I’m now at the end stages of full-time parenthood, when my teenagers have “other plans.” A family trip no longer anchors summer’s end. I’m honestly uncertain how I’ll know that the season’s finally over and I’ve managed to escape.
Is this just regret masquerading as smug superiority and earthy thrift? Perhaps. But I can focus on that in the fall, which is apparently next month, and it is past time to get ready. I’ve seen the Halloween candy on the shelves.
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