"Seasonal Dilemma"

What do you write when you would rather be outside?

And I am using “you would rather be outside” as a metaphor.  Though I am also using it literally because, in truth, I would rather be outside. 

I have a laptop that I pretty much know how to use so I could write outside if I wanted to.  But that’s not exactly what I am talking about.  That’s how I know it’s more than “I would rather be outside.”  It’s “I would rather be outside”…

Just being outside.

You see, it’s summer.  Which is no big deal where I currently reside.  Summer in Southern California is like winter, but it gets dark later.  The distinction is otherwise barely detectable.  Where I originally grew up, however, summer is like, “Where did you come from?”  Who knew there was anything besides “Brrrrr”?

To Torontonians, summer is a reward.  For frozen extremities of all descriptions and “I know my grandparents emigrated from Russia, but did they have to move someplace that reminded them of Russia?”

Skin cancer’s put somewhat of a damper on running outside and luxuriating in the sun.  Still, I sunbathe anyway, even after skin cancer, having developed the habit before skin cancer.  For me, summer is “Can’t get enough of those Sugar Crisps”, replacing “super-sweet cereal” with glorious sunshine and running through sprinklers.

Added to making summer writing a challenge…

Even for those who haven’t gone there for decades, summer means, “No more pencils, no more books; no more teachers, dirty looks.” Despite the shockingly accumulated passage of time, people my age and probably older respond reflexively to a long-ago internalized rhythm.  In our minds, or programmed neurotransmitters, summer means “Free Play” until Labor Day. 

Even when I wrote shows, it felt “wrong” for me to be working in the summer.  (That’s for kids who flunked French and went to “Summer School” to catch up.)  Regularly toiling at an office, I invariably dressed like I was going to camp –cut-off jeans, a t-shirt, sneakers and sweat socks, sometimes sandals and no socks, the conflict of wishes clearly visible to the eye.  (What else would it be visible to?)  Though tethered dutifully to my scriptwriting, my wardrobe hungered to be elsewhere.

Returning now to the present…

End of June, there’s a part of me – not a huge part but it’s substantial – that does not actually want to work.  But if I have to – as I am freely committed to this weekday excursion – I find it necessary to deal with ideas in tune with the meteorological magnificence outside my window.

It is periodically tricky to come up with something to write about in any season.  And it becomes even trickier in summer when, “A”, you do not want to work but would rather be, literally or metaphorically, outside, and “B”, some ideas are just not “summer appropriate.”  

Do I want to vein-poppingly rail against the monstrosity in the White House on a sparklingly beautiful summer’s day?  I unequivocally do not.  And by the way, you’re welcome, for my not submitting you to that “dung show” during the sunshine season we luxuriantly enjoy.

Do I want to talk about a political culture, sundered precariously down the middle, one half of the country playing the “A” side of a record, the other half playing the “B” side wondering what elitist know-it-all labeled it the “B” side in the first place, neither faction ever turning the disc over to hear what their adversaries are responding to?

Why talk about that? 

It’s summer.

Do I really to want to expound, albeit inimitably, on the practical relevance of cable news, the miniscule amount that I watch of it to see if they have developed an enlightened understanding since the election and it turns out they haven’t?  (Cable news seems to have surrendered to the chaos around us, deciding to go “all-in” for the pecuniarial gusto.  Somebody should tell them their “Breaking News” button is broken.  It does not ever seem to go off.)

I’ve got stuff I could to say about that, I suppose.  But why think about it at all?

It’s summer. 

It simply doesn’t fit the mood.

Summer is for light clothing and light reading and light thinking.

The problem, it turns out, is that “light thinking” is not really my forte.

So what do I write about in the summer when I’d rather, literally or metaphorically, be outside? 

I write about the problem of writing in the summer when I’d rather, literally or metaphorically, be outside.

And hope it is, at least marginally, worth hearing about.

Oh well.  Hopefully soon I’ll run into an idea comfortably in sync with this sunshiny season.  In the meantime, I shall keep things short, in deference to readers who themselves would rather be outside.

Wait.  I saw a movie called Maudie the other night that’s sort of “summer sympatico.”

Maybe I’ll write about that.
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Followup From the Fourth:

In a effort not to receive any more American flags, as I have a surfeit of them and I am incapable of throwing any of them away, I took a previously received flag down to the Santa Monica Fourth of July Parade.

As it turns out, there were no flags were given out at the parade.

So it worked.

Except for people who wanted to receive a flag.