A midsummer day's dream

July? When did it get to be July?

Honestly.

The Fourth of July is now a whole week past. We are, in North Carolina, squarely in those hot, sticky days that mark midsummer. Not the dog days of August yet, but those days when it constantly feels as if a storm is brewing. Many days a storm IS brewing, and as clouds gather your heart lifts and you think "Maybe some rain will cool things off!" Funny how you think that every time, and it almost never happens. Instead, if it does rain, it merely increases the humidity to a full 100% and leaves pavement steaming after it passes.

Ugh. I am not a hot-weather kind of gal.

Still, I have to admit that this weather does make me appreciate even the thought of cool autumn days. I AM a cool-weather kind of gal. I went into a store the other day and saw lots of fall clothes--beautiful browns and olive greens, the very thing for a redhead! And I long for the weather to turn cool and crisp and energizing.

But isn't it true that if the weather were always cool and crisp and energizing--if there were never yucky hot days--we wouldn't appreciate those beautiful cool days? It's true for me, at least. Sometimes I think that, in our relatively easy lives, we lose some of the joy of the good things. Air conditioning makes hot weather bearable, so cool weather comes and we hardly notice. We have food so plentiful that we're never terribly hungry, so we derive little satisfaction from a good meal. Easy-to-obtain credit makes it possible to buy most anything we want right now; we don't have to wait and save the way our parents did--but we lose some of the elation of finally being able to have the thing we worked so hard to earn.

I wonder if we should stop to remember that, as good as this life is, the best is yet to come. Our forebears had no trouble remembering this. Take a look at an old hymnal, and you'll find lots of songs that describle life as a "vale of tears." They sang, "This world is not my home; I'm just a passing through." Small wonder: summer or winter, life was hard.

No, I don't want to go back to the harder life that our parents and grandparents lived. But I do wonder if perhaps our view of things is a bit skewed. What do you think?

Golden Occasion

I've heard that a person's "golden birthday" is the birthday of the year number that falls on the day of the same number. For instance, my birthday is on September 5th, so my golden birthday was my fifth birthday. Next year my oldest son will be 17 on May 17, so that will be his golden birthday. Kind of cool, isn't it?

Well, last Friday Jack and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary on June 22nd. So I figure this was our golden anniversary. I know, I know--"Golden Anniversary" is a special term reserved for the 50th anniversary, but it seemed to me that the 22nd on the 22nd deserved special recognition, too.

So we celebrated. I have to say that I think we're better at celebrating things now than we were 22 years ago. Jack was in Manhattan working, so I joined him there. It was so exciting to fly to New York and to do very New Yorkish (or is it New Yorky?) things. One evening we went to the swanky bar at the W Hotel and then on to a very cool restaurant, Asia de Cuba. Another night we went to an early dinner at Bond 45 and then to the Lyceum Theater to see Inherit the Wind with Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy. (This was so exciting for me; I had never been to a New York play before. And yes, I kept hearing Christopher Plummer say, "And I am the head of the family von Trapp, am I not?") Then on the last day we went for a picnic in Central Park, went shopping, and went to another wonderful restaurant, Rosa Mexicano. Wow.

But the biggest "wow" for me, I think, was realizing that, as of this anniversary, I've been married half my life. A little more than half, actually, since I won't turn 44 for a couple more months. And while the things I did during the first half of my life seemed so significant at the time, it's really the things I've done in the second half that have been most important. It's amazing to have lived with someone for so long, to have experienced the birth of three children, the death of two parents, 10 moves (five different states!), three dogs, hundreds of friends.

There's a song from the musical RENT called "525,600 Minutes": have you heard it? It asks how one measures a year, which includes 525,600 minutes. Jack and I have now lived together more than 11,563,200 minutes. That's almost more than I can count. It reminds me of one of my favorite childhood hymns, a little song by Johann Hey.

Can you count the stars of evening
That are shining in the sky?
Can you count the clouds that daily
Over all the world go by?
God the Lord, who doth not slumber
Keepeth all the boundless number:
But He careth more for thee,
But He careth more for thee.

Can you count the birds that warble
In the sunshine all the day?
Can you count the little fishes
That in sparkling waters play?
God the Lord their number knoweth;
For each one His care He showeth.
Shall He not remember thee?
Shall He not remember thee?

Can you count the many children
In their little beds at night?
Who, without a thought of sorrow,
Rise again at morning light?
God the Lord, who dwells in heaven,
Loving care to each has given.
He has not forgotten thee;
He has not forgotten thee.

Golden, indeed.

Smashed

My oldest son, Will, is a very good driver. Other parents had told me that I'd be doing a lot more praying after Will got his license, and I have to admit that's the truth. I've found myself thinking about his safety in ways I hadn't thought for years--back to the kinds of thoughts I had when he was a little boy and one day just ventured off down the sidewalk. . . going to town? Or just going. Now he's going again.

Last Friday he was going, and making a careful job of it. Unfortunately, not all drivers observe one of the rules that Will always follows: No Cell Phone Usage While Driving. In fact, some drivers will speed along, heedless of red lights, describing their whereabouts to friends, until they are forcibly stopped. Not stopped from cell phone usage, but Stopped from speeding along. Such was the case when an elderly woman rear-ended Will at a busy intersection last Friday afternoon.

Boy, was he mad. After all, he had done everything right. He was stopped at the red light, just as he was supposed to be. The woman was still talking on her cell phone even after she had smashed into him. She did end her call, finally, and it turns out that she was from out of town, was lost, and had called a friend for directions. If only she had pulled off the road before making the call.

Oh, well. Things happen. Thank God I listened to my husband when he was considering what kind of car that Will should drive. Will was driving a very safe car. The rear end of the car was badly damaged, but Will was fine. He was mad, and he wasn't particularly complimentary of elderly female cell-phone-talking drivers, but he was unhurt.

It is an amazing thing to arrive at the scene of an accident, to see two cars badly smashed, and to see your child sitting in one of those cars. The what-might-have-beens are too awful to contemplate, so for the most part you just don't contemplate them: there's only so much your heart can take. So you concentrate on the police report, and on calling for a tow truck, and on getting the car to the body shop, and on talking with insurance adjusters, and on arranging for a rental car, and on the countless other little inconveniences of being the victim of an accident. And you are so thankful that you're only dealing with inconveniences.

One day soon the car will be repaired, and Will will be off driving again, no doubt keeping a weather eye for old ladies on cell phones.

And I? Oh, I'll be praying. Maybe I'll pray while I'm driving. I probably won't be making many phone calls.