THOMAS LARSON

(Written June 1, 1992)

Someone asked me what summer is like for a schoolteacher. It’s one long Christmas day, I said. The eyelids snap open, “It’s here, we’re free, the work and waiting’s over.” Our stocking’s trimmed and brimmed—an hour at the paper, a clock’s delightful noise, a higher pile of clothes. The world pauses for us, no need to see to but our own.

To shock us, though, the opposite also occurs. So early a bud wilts anticipation’s bloom: Anxiety flowers instead. Are we no longer due? Is this relief or depression? Was summer better expected in the stressful lion-taming days of May when the students’ sap drowned their indiffer­ence?

To calm the doubt, classes vanish from memory—the recalcitrant students, the grade hustlers, the few intensely present; perky faces, fragile selves, clannish thought, idle bods. Was that me before the lectern or did my clever clone sent out last fall last the whole year through? Did the ruse work?

The little bird arrives, the oldest rota of English verse, gay and lonely both. “Sumer is icumen in, / Lhude sing cuccu, / Groweth sed and bloweth med, / And springth the wode nu, / Sing cuccu, / Sing cuccu.” Don’t be fooled. Singing in rounds may free the binding coil. Believing there’s weeks enough to wallow in, from sun to shade to slow, is perfectly understand­able. I’m sorry, it’s a spell, the poem a pretender to the throne of time. It’s while you sing and mean to be here now, the season duck-walks by.

Then, the last June days push fragile into fresh, but we are wary. More often not to mutate time with an impetuous jet to Cabo or Rome. More often not to Returning in fall to hear of others’ excursions—bike touring in Denali, a writer’s conference in Prague—may tug a vicarious ear that wishes toil beyond the vale. Yet, to make the most of least, we stay home. Stay put. Linger in the gloam. Count ourselves not lucky, but blessed.

Doworthy July comes nagging. A steady pulse, though, charts the lie of summer play. A party with invitations, poolside chat, veggie burgers on the grill. In the trash—too much effort. Next year, maybe. How about a neighborhood club? But no one’s here; they’re all within their motor homes, motoring away. All doing is melodramatic. I like to sweep the sidewalk off and watch it blow back at my feet. Or else consume baseball, every last damn inning, who cares who wins.

July sleeps in, too, to drain away what once we taught. It seemed so vital, the grammar, the trig, the multicultural history, traditions and tables and facts that (so we say) must be learned. Until, that is, the discipline boils off. The learning curve sags. The bit retracts. Regret is a pail of water. A summer loves what it forgets. And, thus, we forget all term to forgive ourselves the arrogance of knowing so much for knowing so little is enough.

Finally, up and at ’em August: A week at the lake, a bungalow of sea-and-sand, a first chapter written, assignation in the afternoon. Home to photo albums pumped accordion-fat, the closet cleaned, the garage-growth shorn. But such deeds, boxed and taped and attic-sent, do not measure this season of the mind. When we know there’s more to life than life can give we sit in summer’s palm. And layering time with freedom to come to this, an uphill trek in three months flat, the vista, you’re sure, is Shangri-La—I know, I know, it’s wiser to troop back to class before this urge is creed or law.

But not . . . just . . . yet.