Red 7

Happy July 1. Mid summer, midyear. The Old Farmer's Almanac says it's Canada Day. It feels like a Canadian summer day today, a breezy gift of Aeolus and Sol, The butterfly bushes are reaching to the clouds, and bumblebees feed on the coneflowers. "The Garden Year" says this:

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots and gilly-flowers.

Those days will come, but right now it's hotter in Portland, Oregon than it is here. Too nice a day to sit inside by the computer, however breezy the back porch is, where you feel you're perching in the trees, right by the blue jays. I have a friend who once lived in an apartment in Kingsport, Tennesee, a modest apartent in a modest neighborhood,. His living room had a door that opened out onto a flat rook, at tree top level. He put two chairs chairs out there, and a little side table. If you sat very still you could see birds come to the trees, warblers and others that never come down below roof level, The sunlight and wind filtered through the leaves and you were in a forest, far removed from the town just beyond on the other side of the house.

I read today of another high person brought low, a typical tawdry sex scandal -- except that oops, it was really crime, because the girls involved were underage -- having too much free time right now, I read the story and imagined the life of a man from the city -- Coney Island -- who became very wealthy and could live as he chose. What he chose was a Caribbean island and all the joys of isolation -- oh, and underage girls. The typical tawdry story. But he was interviewed as he faced moving from there to a prison. Other than the question of underage girls, and that's a deal-breaker, his life was otherwise okay -- he gave money away to worthy causes and minded his business. The thing I envied about his luxury was not the island, not the sand and sun and beaches and sunrises and sunsets (his house is on a promontory that overlooks both the Atlantic and the Caribbean), but this: he said he never went to meetings, "I don't ever have to be anywhere."

To me, that would be the best part (besides never worrying about money), never having to be anywhere. Days like that a a luxury, and this midsummer breezy lull before the hot days and back to work is to be savored. I'm on my little island.

Entertaining Ourselves

Artist's Studio, West Barrington, RI, 2007

Unlike my children, I don't write only when I have something to say. I'd rather write a non-memorable paragraph every day than less, just for the practice of seeing my words in print, and for the discipline. Maybe a new winter's resolution is to do just that.

Here's a passage from one of my favorite books, Now That We Have to Walk by Raymond Tifft Fuller (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1943):

"... a dismaying proportions of us Americans buy too many superfluous gadgets to save time and labor (working still harder than ever to possess and maintain them); neglect our health and our insurance, and live always above our income-level; we have put far too much of our 'saved' time into being entertained. Seductively placed before us is a variety of more or less effective diversions perhaps never equalled since the days of the Caesars. Eighteenth century royalties never had the time-killing opportunities we common Americans have. We are being painstakingly trained to regard entertainment and ever more entertainment as the crowning feature of civilized life. Subtly the passive role has been glorified into being the characteristic element of a high standard of living..... Millions of Americans have surrendered all personal sovereignty over their fun and their interests."

Zow. I say this all the time. Or, rather, I think it but do NOT say it, as I have an antipathy toward stating the obvious. And it's been said many times, probably centuries before Fuller. But this is from 1943 -- how long must the prophet speak in the wilderness?

I had a couple more passages to copy here, but this is enough food for thought for one session.