Lately, utter exhaustion has crept up on me again and again. I’ve had to concede that I have not recovered entirely from the hard year of 2023 (my mother’s excruciating decline and death, the stress of my son’s sudden wedding, the ordeal of October 7 and that very same son going to war). And then, this year, the ugly campus protests, in particular at my younger son’s GW campus, the fear of how and whether his graduation would go off, and the shock of finding that, indeed, the German 1930s are repeating themselves here. All that chips away at what little armor I might have left.
My little efforts of replenishing the well have been too little, as it continues to run dry. Or rather, perhaps some of the brokenness from last year has simply left cracks in the barrel. So it leaks, no matter how much fuel I try to pour back in. It still leaks.
Perhaps rest will replenish it?
At least, hopefully, rest will eventually take care of the exhaustion. But how to rest? “Rest is hard work,” Vincent Deary states in his book How We Break, which I finally began reading. I bought it at a particularly trying time last fall, just after it had come out. I thought this was the kind of book I needed. Alas, I didn’t even have the wherewithal then to read about why we break and how we might repair ourselves, which turns out not the primary focus of the book anyway.
So, how to rest?
Isn’t that what summer is for? Used to be for?
Might summering be in order?
My great-aunt used to summer at her lake house in northern Michigan. Defined as “to spend the summer in a particular place,” summering is an American tradition, isn’t it? My great-aunt used to abdicate from regular life in Lansing, where the family owned a few carpet stores, and spend the summer at the lake house. She’d chill out with the kids; her husband would, classically, drive up on weekends.
Perhaps it’s time to cultivate that for myself?
My husband and I have a country home, and yet I have not managed to disappear there for the summer. Obligations call me back to the city, even if I try to reduce them: doctors appointments, social engagements I do cherish, guests or family members flying in and out, maintenance stuff that needs to be done at our place in the city, such as having the windows washed or dealing with our condo association’s new TV setup.
Meanwhile, I find that, each summer, the city goes more and more on my nerves.
It’s become fashionable to explode fire crackers in our alley at 11pm. Why I ask? In the lead-up to the 4th of July, we now live in what sounds like a war zone at night. Traffic has become intolerable, to the point where I avoid driving to O’Hare Airport at all costs. Any trip downtown can take an hour because of pop-up construction sites that close Lake Shore Drive down to one lane, often with no workers in sight. I hate crowds on a good day and in the summer, Chicago is especially crowded. Everything is harder when it’s stuffed with people.
So, summering is in order, or I’ll turn into a total misanthrope on top of being a depleted human.
I have been thinking about summering more in terms of wintering, i.e. taking some time to “chill,” as my niece calls it. I haven’t actually taken time out to chill, like a serious amount of time, not just a weekend or a few days. But I am at a time in my life when I should be able to do this. Not just trod through the days, cross to-do’s of the list, but rediscover the leisure of summer, the joy.
I loved this quote that Katherine May shared in her Summer Solstice post:
Isn’t this a great goal:
“Aim yourself towards pleasure.”
So where is it? The leisure of summer? The languid days? The joy?
The other day, on my morning walk to get the mail before the heat set in, I decided to make a detour and sit by one of our ponds in the shade.
And I remembered my old habit of making a summer list when my kids were younger. I’d list the things that make a summer a summer for me. The list would be pinned to the fridge so that, by the end of the summer, as my kids returned to school, and other parents would ask whether we’d had a “good summer,” I would be able to say yes, we had a good summer.
What would make a summer a summer now? How to get as much summering in as possible and minimize its energy-draining annoyances, city or otherwise?
So I began a summer list, not of things to achieve but as a reminder of how to summer. Here are its beginnings—and hopefully it’ll prove to be a tool that does help replenish the well.
Summer List
Lie flat in the grass and look up into the endless blue of the sky, watch clouds float by, hear a propeller plane approach before I see it glinting in the sun, listen to bees buzz among the clover, notice the black and white pattern of a bird’s wings as it flaps by
Go on a road trip and contemplate the wide open horizon (coming up soon!)
Go to the beach, dig my toes in the sand, swim in the lake
Light camp fires, roast sausages and marshmallows, listen to the bullfrogs trumpet, watch fireflies, and later wait for the stars to appear and hopefully catch a falling star
Explore a national park I haven’t been to yet (also coming up, thankfully!)
Go on sweaty hikes with my daughter
Pick wild berries in the woods and stop to smell the lavender scent of milkweed
To be continued, I hope…
Pray share what’s on your summer list, if you have one, or create one if you don’t!
May I suggest surrounding yourself with light-hearted people instead of becoming a misanthrope? :) My summer list shares your #1 - Lie flat in the grass and look up into the endless blue of the sky.... and then #2 Slow bike rides - disconnect the body pedaling from the mind enjoying the surroundings (be it pretty houses in Uptown or the lake) #3 Make lemonade, enjoy the sound of ice cubes clinking against the glass, drink on the roof/balcony #4 Picnic in the park with coffee & book
What a beautiful vision of summer. I get sick in the heat and have always just endured summer, waiting for it to pass. You have transformed my outlook!