Instructions For Living A Summer

Already summer is waning. The summer solstice was a month ago. The berry section of the produce aisle is being crowded out by grapes. Going into Walmart for paper towels or batteries requires running the gauntlet of school supply end caps on every aisle and maneuvering your buggy around the newest crop of college students who don't know where to find trash cans and desk lamps. 

There were things I planned to do this summer, projects I planned to finish, problems I intended to solve. There were people I meant to see. I cannot help being a little sad and the sadness deepens when I lean down to scruff Owen’s neck and realize how much white there is now around his eyes and on his muzzle. His summers, my summers, all our summers are numbered.

I understand where that maudlin thought can lead, however. I know how quickly and easily one can lose sight of the mercies and compassions of the present moment and so I decide to take an inventory, make a list, remember what about this summer has been joyous.

1. Two days at the beach.

2. Dinner in Savannah with my college roommate and her husband.

3. Finding a home for the stray dog who found his way to Sandhill and stayed for two weeks.

4. My great-niece’s dance recital.

5. Lunch and laughter telling war stories with old office buddies.

6. Basil on tomatoes.

7. Yacht Rock on Sirius XM.

8. Reading, so much reading.

The list, I realize when I pause to review, includes nothing out of the ordinary, but – paradoxically – every single thing on it is extraordinary. I am reminded of my favorite lines from Mary Oliver’s poem “Sometimes”: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

I used to think the hard part was paying attention. Now I understand that the real effort lies in being astonished, in loosening my grip on myself long enough to be momentarily breathless with amazement, in acknowledging my profound insignificance in a world that includes tide pools and bird nests, baby giggles and full moons.

One day last week I went walking after one of the recent late afternoon rainstorms. A few heavy clouds still hung over the horizon, but I had determined it was worth the risk of getting wet to escape the stagnant (if cool) air of the house for the fresh (if still warm and sticky) air of the outdoors.

I was a few hundreds yards into my jaunt when the wind began vocalizing, a deep throaty baritone projecting its masculinity through the high tops of the pine trees. When it paused to take a breath (Does the wind HAVE a diaphragm?), the voices of crickets and frogs filled in like a gospel choir, swaying in time with the music.

I stopped. Time stopped. The spell of everyday magic had fallen on me. I was charmed and enchanted and no longer melancholy with the weight of what is not; I was bewitched by the breadth and depth and height of all that is,

And somewhere in the woods around me, an aging dog ran through the undergrowth, nose to the ground, compelled by instinct to search for something he cannot yet see.

9. Astonishment.

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