Summertime

This will be the last post written by me until Sunday, August 31. I’ve decided to take the month of August off. After eleven years of weekly posts, I’m getting a little tired. I think of Nolan Ryan pitching all those innings. Like him, I’ve lost some games and even hit a few batters, but I like to think I’ve got a no-hitter or two under my belt (he had seven). Next week’s post, the last until August 31, will be written by Ann Winters, a writer and longtime subscriber to this site. In her post, she muses playfully and poetically on what to write in a milestone birthday card for a friend.

Winters’ post will be a good note to end on. In thinking about the topics she raises–friendship, aging, the limitations of time and space–I’ve realized that the real issue is death. At least it is for me. You live long enough, you see how life is made up of small pockets of relationships and events that often exist independently of each other. Not only do they not connect, but they last only for a time and then end long before we may want them to. Even as we enjoy them, we sense their fading away. This is Faust’s haunting lament: Verweile doch! Du bist so schön (“Stay a while! You are so beautiful!”).

I mentioned this one day to a student in the university boxing club as we sat after practice, talking about his upcoming graduation. He faced it with a mixture of dread, joy, and relief. Then he confessed how much he was going to miss boxing. I told him to take in the scene before us and hold onto it, since there would never be another moment quite like it. But even though such moments never stay, their memory remains with us. It will be a reminder for him in the years to come that something special happened during his time with the club.

Certainly, memory is a way to fight death. What we remember will always have life even if in a limited sense. But life and death can easily become concepts that we play all sorts of intellectual games with and keep at arm’s length for our own protection. The real challenge is between living and dying. It is made even more of a struggle, since they exist at the same time. What is living is already dying.

Summer is the perfect time for thinking about both, especially in August with fall and winter hovering on the horizon. Personally, I don’t have travel plans, so there won’t be any flights requiring a passport. International travel exhausts me, even as it gives me improbable stories to tell (see Mano-a-Mano a Milano). Maybe that’s because I do so much of it alone. I like California’s Central Coast, so I may spend time there (see Who Could Ask for Anything More?). I also live by the beach, so I might sit back with a cappuccino in hand and watch pelicans skirt the surface of the water in search of food. Make that a cappuccino with a flask of Irish whiskey.

Then again, I plan on doing more judo and boxing. It’s surprising how much I have come to depend on working out. I’m not doing it as a way to stave off death, although I am reminded of Woody Allen’s line about wanting to achieve immortality not by composing a symphony or painting a work of art, but by never dying. There’s just something about sweating that makes everything feel all right (see Miracle Cure). I’m going to miss sweating when I die.

During my time off, I might think about and even outline the next writing project. The thing is, I find writing even more exhausting than traveling. Believe me when I tell you that a book-length manuscript rests on a mattress of many naps. My body’s changing, which may explain my recent cravings for pickle juice. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was “in the way.” But I know that can’t be, since I’m devoted to getting out of the way (see Outta the Way). We’ll see what happens by the time I get back. As they say in Ghostbusters (1984), “See you on the other side.”

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