In The Summertime
Will this summer be goated, or merely epic?
A thick snow has fallen. It deadens the sounds of the inky night beyond my cabin. Silence, save for some resilient leaves rustling in the trees and the ruddy-faced caretaker of the cemetery making his rounds. Through the window, I espy the caretaker sweeping snow from the headstones, clearing illegible inscriptions for no one to read. His pockets are laden with cloves to mask the scent of death.
Icy wind seeps up between cracks in the ancient, creaking floorboard, penetrating my woolen socks and chilling my tired bones. I traipse around the house in my flannel nightshirt, carrying my sole small candle in a pewter holder. A noise from the carriage house startles me, and I accidentally light my long, dangling sleeping cap on fire. I call for help and rush out into the gelid air. The caretaker is already frozen.
The next day, I serve mince pies to the townspeople on Church Green. It is the only meat they have eaten all winter. The children appear less jaundiced. The torrent of snot that flows permanently from their nostrils ceases for just a moment. The womenfolk thank me. Boswell, the minister, approaches on his skinny gray. He tastes the mince and thanks me kindly. “Curious,” he says. “It tastes ever so faintly of cloves.”
This is what winter is like in my New England hometown. I came home for Thanksgiving (nobody got tested, everyone had a sore throat, don’t worry!) and have not left yet. Life here really is that brutal. The fridge never remains stocked with Diet Snapple. The TV is constantly tuned to network shows called “Cop Love” or “My Fun Gay Nephew.” The longer I stay, the more excited I become about the possibility of this being the best summer ever.
There’s really no sane reason to think this way at the moment. I wrote last week about the myriad challenges awaiting us this winter. Any positive news we got this week was met with an equal and opposite dose of foreboding. The Moderna vaccine was approved, but our vaccine distribution apparatus is already showing signs of dysfunction. We had New York’s first big snowfall in three years, but this prompted de Blasio to declare the permanent end of snow days, the closest this country has come to an actual War on Christmas. Congress inched closer to a relief bill this week, as the members hashed out details over a meal of Ortolan bunting. However, talks stalled when multiple representatives had their colostomy bags clogged by hot oil and tiny bird bones.
Regardless, there seems to be a murmuring consensus that Summer 2021 could be historic. (Everyone’s calling me. They’re saying, “Sir! This is going to be the best summer.” The best! We’ve never seen anything like it, folks.) A lot has to go right. But it’s possible that we simultaneously emerge from our hibernations this summer and descend upon the bars like a hooting, screeching bachelorette party, dancing on the tables, taking shots out off a Chippendale’s belly button, and making one stupid mistake that would certainly destroy our marriage so we carry it around forever as a knotted ball of shame.
What will it be like when nightlife returns? Will you talk to strangers? Will you share cups? How long until you kiss someone on the dance floor again? How long until you go back to a stranger’s house, wait until they fall asleep, then take pictures of their credit and debit cards?
We may not know it now, but we desperately crave the most banal, casual forms of social interaction. 2020 has deprived us of minor interests. Our only options this year were doom and gloom or intolerable monotony. The things which captured our attention - Tiger King, Tik Toks of Jason Derulo gyrating, sadomasochism - did so only because our minds needed to latch onto something, like a baby fulfilling the oral fixation by sucking their thumb. We need meaningless interactions. We need to hear a guy in a dinosaur-print button-down to explain his unfathomably boring job. We need to listen to a drunk girl crying about how she needs to stop trusting Capricorns named Jeremy.
Once the world gets back to normal, we will want to do anything. Right now, we not only miss the things we are currently unable to do, but the ability to do things we never did. So, we will go places just because we can. We will reach out to people we did not realize we liked. We will say yes to karaoke and raves and some guy’s stupid stand-up comedy show with exotic animals.
Since so many things have to go right for us to get a Roaring 2021, all this hype probably leads to disappointment. Most New Year’s Eves are ruined by excessive expectations. The dream of champagne-fueled midnight kisses is often replaced by the reality of spending $150 to be harassed in a nightclub by a bunch of dudes from Jersey City wearing shiny black dress shirts. The same goes for prom. Try too hard to have fun and get lucky, and you just might end up way too high from an edible, arguing with the magician that his illusions are “not fair”, while your date drinks Fireball out of a plastic bottle with the boys volleyball team by the reservoir.
Of course, the vast pain and misery of the pandemic will not disappear with a shot in the arm. The economic and social effects will linger. If Covid is under control, partying will not be as immoral and embarrassing as it while the virus is rampaging. But going out might still feel like driving through the Valley of Ashes to a party at Gatsby’s.
Maybe it will be a great summer. Or maybe it won’t. But it’s much more fun to think it will be great. There’s not much else to do at the moment beyond making playlists that will have me moving like a slut. Hopefully I get to use them next year.