Summer is a weird one. it’s hard to imagine working on anything tedious during these long hot months. Most likely due to the years of summer vacation I enjoyed as a boy. Summer is a space outside of time. The days are too long, the nights to short, and each day is a quest to pack in as much sunlight as possible. One quest made up of three months of daily, afternoonly, nightly quests flowing into each other. Is it possible to camp enough this summer to stave off dreams of camping later in the year?
The inverse of a hibernating bear come winter, living beings soak up the sun during the long months in between transitory spring and fall in order to survive the winter. Minnesota still has this rhythm and will for a few years to come. Today, a trip to the MIA once again. There is a show there going on, with a gift from a very rich man on display. A sublime painting for us to gaze upon before it’s returned to the vault in the mansion on the hill.
This weekend, I must be in nature again. Lay my head down on the soft warm earth and listen to the wind and the water breathe. Nobody ever mentions the bugs in the fairy tales. They’re starving out there, and too numerous, and fighting amongst each other. When they find one of us, it’s like the mosquito queens of Mieville’s imagination: gaping screaming yearning biting.
When the land around the Twin Cities starts drying up and changing, will the throngs look like Steinbeck’s jalopy trains on the 66? Will camps outside of muddy lakes be called Trumpvilles? We have more time than that.
Mars awaits.
