Password is my favorite game, and my second favorite game show. It’s a word association guessing game; you give a one word hint to somebody and then they try to guess the word you’re looking at. Normally you get to put a little spin on the clue, change your voice, raise your eyebrows. Here, let me try it with you… ok… the clue is SUMMER.
Ok, one of you said ”LOVIN’!’” and I know who you are, and I knew you were gonna say that. Maybe CAMP. Or SQUASH, though that’s a pretty deep cut. Definitely not SCHOOL, yuck, that’s just dark poetry.
If you just thought of the word “VACATION”, then, well played. That’s just what I was thinking.
When I think of summer, I remember summer vacation, this template I carry around in my head, a decades old definition of a luxurious three month long Mesopotamia between school years, a sweet sweet escape from, well, everything. Time did not work the same way during summer vacation (neither did calories as I remember). I read books and played guitar and looked at clouds in the daytime and stars at night. I remember being really relaxed. I almost wish I didn’t, because relaxation now is like a dairy-free gluten-free version of that.
During summer vacation was the only time I was able to watch game shows, of course. Free from both the routine of school and its drama, I could sit peacefully with a several bowlfuls of cereal and enjoy the intrigue of guessing the price of a waffle iron within 7 dollars, thus preventing that little Price is Right mountain climber from falling off his cardboard cutout.
My mother allowed me exactly one week of this spa-like behavior before my landscaping duties began. Our front yard was a 20 foot high 45 degree hill which seemed to require mowing as much as a grown man requires shaving. Every year I engineered a new way to use the lawn mower to get the job done: the mower only flipped over on me once, when I decided to muscle the situation and go at it from side to side, and the sudden ferocious gnashing maniacal maelstrom of cross whirling blades flashing malevolently in the hot sun like an angry overturned monster crab scared me sufficiently to use more brains than brawn after that; ropes and a pulley from the top, then enthusiastic running starts from the bottom wearing soccer spikes.
There wasn’t a whole lot to be scared of in the summer. Most of my friends were at least worried about sunburns, but, y’know, lucky me. My mom, a gifted and talented teacher, and a gifted and talented teacher, had just about the same vacations as I did, so the living was actually pretty easy. Once I could drive, which in Kansas City back then was at 15, I always had a summer job and more grown up concerns, like getting to work on time, took over. But mostly summer, at least for kids, was a vacation from worrying about things.
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Worry has apparently used all its vacation time; summer just isn’t that long anymore. As a fresh new small business owner, I’m launching a post-COVID Gainful Employment Tour (maybe I could sell t-shirts for extra money), trying to build a family business that my daughter can decide not to take over someday. Consequently, our current vacation budget allows us to daydream of lands as far away as Coney Island. It’s 5 miles that way, actually.
And sadly this summer began with a wave of incredibly serious events: unbridled extremism, tragic legislation, and not-so-random disasters. And I started a humor column in the grimmest two week period of the year. My wife pointed this out. “Do you think I should wait?” I asked her, and she responded, “When’s it gonna be less grim?”. A little ray of darkness, that one, but she’s right. Times have always been grim, just not broadcast as well.
Sitting in front of that tv as a kid, I was isolated by lower technology, armed only with my daily bowls of Apple Jacks and maybe Walter Cronkite. And now there’s high speed internet connecting my reality directly and immediately to others, and I am honored to be part of this wider world, including individuals I’ll never meet, places I may never visit. I’m proud to share responsibility for this greater community, stand up and speak out for positive change, but to do that takes energy, and I don’t really have any. We really do need a vacation.
People living in the country might head to their nearest city for an adventure. City people can go to the country to unwind. Big City people go to other countries to explore. But now we’re all Digital Citizens of the World, so where are we supposed to go for vacation? How do you get away when you live everywhere?
Our vacation will be focus-based this year, living seven and a half weeks in a sun drenched reality of semi-forced optimism. As crazy as it sounds right now, we’re staying home. I’m taking time to make music, my daughter’s painting a series of large watercolors, and my wife is working on her novel. Then we’re gonna share ‘em with each other. It sounds kind of crazy, but it’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard.
Glad you asked: the craziest thing I ever heard was from a guy I worked with years ago who seemed to spend his vacations only in extremely stressful situations. He’d go camping for two weeks with just one backpack in a jungle, or he’d explore an extremely congested city abroad where the streets were filled with as many animals as vehicles, and then he’d come back and tell us how awful it was, maybe show us a few photographs he had taken (unless his camera was stolen).
I finally asked him why he chose these places, and he said it was a theory of his father’s;
take a vacation in the most difficult place possible, so when you arrive back at your six by six beige cubicle you bring what no gift shop could sell you. Gratitude.
…then he’d put up his postcards, take the remainder of his penicillin, and enjoy where he was, on a 50 week vacation from the rest of the world.
Crazy? Maybe a little out there, but I do agree that even the best vacations send us home with a new sense of wonder and appreciation for where we are, strengthens our sense of proportion, the same way a truly magnificent sunset can make us feel infinitesimal yet mighty at the same time. So our vacation this summer will be to spend time appreciating harmony, color, and emotion, watch some sunsets, and journey as far as $100 of gas will currently take us. So, y’know, Coney Island.
I’m not looking to escape the world. I love it, I live here.
I just need to, whaddya call…you know…
RELAX. That’s the word.
©2022 Jd Michaels / CabsEverywhere Productions
…thanks for your time.
Lazy. Hazy. Crazy.