Hell(o) Summer

I’ll keep things brief this year. After all, I’ve said a lot about summer in previous years, and I think by now my feelings are painfully clear.

As another summer dawns, I find myself thinking of hell.

Like you do, I suppose.

If hell were a real place, and people did in fact end up there, it would only make sense for it to be tailored to provide the most unpleasant experience possible for each specific person.

For instance, all the summer-lovers who did things like evade their taxes and kick small animals would find no fireflies, no barbecues, no hikes or sailing trips or bonfires on the beach. There’d be no long afternoons by the pool or picnics in the grass. No roses would bloom, no bees would flit among the flowers, no birds would titter and call in the golden glow of another summer morning.

I don’t know what would be in their place—maybe an icy sidewalk that never ends—but you can be sure there would be none of the summery things they cherish so dearly.

On the other hand, for someone like me who views the summer with anger and suspicion, the entirety of hell would likely be one company barbecue after another. Heat and humidity, sunburns and heat stroke. Sweating crowds and fried carnival foods and spilled lemonade and melting ice cream. Interminable games of cornhole. And the mosquitoes…the mosquitoes would be everywhere. Taunting me. Nipping at me mercilessly. And because it’s hell, they’d probably have tiny pitchforks in place of a proboscis, and they’d poke me and laugh and then poke me again. For eternity.

It’s a sobering image. In fact, it’s spooked me a bit. I’ve been Jacob Marley-ed by my own imagination.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on summer. Maybe I should try to enjoy some of the nicer aspects of the season. Like the crop of gooseberries in the garden that are blushing deeper by the day and will soon be ready to transform into lip-puckering gooseberry pie. Or fireflies, which have always been summer’s major redeeming quality.

Here in Pennsylvania, rain clouds are rolling in for the solstice. The air is cool, the sky is dark. Summer seems to be meeting me halfway. I appreciate the gesture. With an olive branch like that, I suppose I can tolerate summer. For a few weeks, at least.