Have a Good Day

I saw it. That first tree showing signs of turning its back on summer. As heat bugs begin to quiet their choral hum and crickets chirp a little less frequently, those few orange leaves are what gently push our sun kissed shoulders down. Soon we will all lie back and allow this new season to gently glide in, pumpkin spice and all. It is a change that is both melancholic and rousing; a blossoming yield to a higher power that has no regard for our distaste for cold. Winter is coming. Sorry, Game of Thrones, but New Englanders said that first. 

Intertwined with this autumnal descent is the arrival of a new school year that has everyone on high alert. No matter what angle you look at it, there are problems. And the recent closure of colleges that experienced outbreaks in an instant seems to me like a harbinger of doom for any district attempting hybrid or in-person. Mom’s advice of just showing up when and where I am told still works for me as a teacher of many and mother of three. But I can very clearly see the threatening clouds coalescing in the distance. If you don’t see what I see, I am happy for you. This is not something I wish to argue or debate. In fact, I hope that what you see is what will be.

A couple days ago, we had one of those incredibly perfect beach days. The bay rippled like tinsel under the sun and waves delicately approached the shore as if in slow motion. I could not hear the arguments of my kids as they climbed the jetty’s rocks and I quietly congratulated myself on hovering far less than I once did. My mind slipped into my own memories of our nearly 40-year-old August tradition of going to Mattapoisett and how I too scraped myself on the barnacles of those rocks. True, my family is celebrating this month much differently than before and that makes me sad. But the static and predictable nature of August will always be a welcome comfort; one that I did not know I missed. Maybe I needed a quick dose of familiarity and tradition to focus less on the approaching storm. Maybe I’m a tired mom who just needed to see my kids play nicely again. Whatever it was, it helped. Then reality showed up in the form of all the many variables involved with going back to school. Oh reality, do you have to be so…real?

Though moderation is key when bellying up to the open bar of fears, this pandemic has shoved us into a corner where overindulgence is unavoidable and allowable. I allowed myself to get a little drunk on anxiety and it actually felt good to discuss all the what ifs and the scary stuff. It took a few minutes to sober up and I was a total scatterbrain during that time. Then I realized that these precious last moments of summer are ebbing away along with the chlorophyll of that changing Maple tree I spotted. So I decided to drink in, and get drunk on, summer instead. A wise choice, I hope.

Yesterday was one of those days when predicted thunderstorms could have completely derailed our plans for a hike and an evening beach trip. Instead of calling it all off, we carefully watched the radar and seized on the passage of one storm to hike Blue Hills; a hike that turned out to be perfect and sunny the whole way. The next storm arrived just as we were leaving, providing an opportunity to rest and allow the muscles to recover. Rain fell for more than two hours and the air shifted from humid to cool. Though a beach trip seemed iffy, the radar promised a clearing so we went. And wouldn’t you know, it turned out to be one of the most beautiful beach nights of the year, complete with a spectacular sighting of a seal slowly swimming the Monetesque waters offshore. Had I allowed those two storms to dictate how I lived yesterday, I would have lived far less fully than I did. What a shame that would have been and would be.

We’re all going to get drunk on fear at one point or another and over and over again I assume—it cannot be avoided. But this one life right now is all we got. Perhaps a little abstemiousness with our fears would be prudent now and again to ensure that we are in fact living during this pandemic. I see the clouds, the storms, the backfires getting ready to burst. I feel them in my gut too. But today, this hot summer day, will never happen again. There’s something out there that you need to experience and feel. So go. Keep an eye on the radar if you must. But have a good day. As a wise woman once said to me at the Hindu monastery on Kaua’i:  “Is there any other kind?”