Yes, prepare yourself for another (LONG) post about the weather and changing seasons. I don't know why this is so important to me, but it is. It seems to me that there's so much richness in the earth around us, and I for one, crave more of it. I often feel trapped in this city of concrete and asphalt, with its exoskeleton of metal and steel, and all our cold devices of plastic and glass that we can't go without even for an hour. The Earth is warm and rich and beautiful. It's a growing, living thing. I soak each season, each month, into me. I look. I listen. I think. I feel. Each season and month has a different feel to it. And up until now I've been half-blind, half resentful of the feelings of August. This year I'm not. This year I am delighted by the charms of August, and I want to tell you why.
Summer has always been my least favorite season. I don't like the triple-digit temperatures. I don't like the air so humid that you almost have to wade through it. I strongly dislike feeling sticky with sweat. I hate how blazing and strident the sunlight is. It's too brash, it's too obvious. It's almost like having your eyes assaulted like your ears would be if someone were to sneak up behind you and shout in your ears.
In stories, summer is usually the time when good things happen. How many stories have you read that are set in summer? "That" summer. The summer before this happened, or the summer after something else happened. "That," summer where the boy met the girl. Summer romances, or exciting vacations, or the summer you thought would be boring until...fill in the blank. In the stories, summer brings healing to hurting hearts, and adventure and meaning to restless hearts. I see why the stories are that way, of course. There's no school in the summertime. And there's something about the summers of your life before jobs and real life set in, before college and responsibilities. You're old enough to know things, and still have time to care and to explore.
Don't get the impression that I'm being stuck up about the tropes of summertime stories. Tropes are tropes for a reason. They make good stories. I'm a bit rueful, perhaps, but only because my experiences with summer have been very different.
Each season's beauty fills me with longing. Each season seems to promise me something, though it never delivers on its promise. Springtime promises Resurrection. Of new, glorious, better Life after death.
Winter promises Adventure. The biting wind, the bare branches, and the starry sky fills me with the longing for adventure. For more than the life I'm living. For something to seek after and find, alongside comrades. Something to fight for, live for, and die for.
Autumn gives the promise of Immortality. I'll have to come back to that later.
Summer promises Fulfillment.
The promises overlap, of course. But they specially overlap when the seasons begin to blend.
Now, when I was younger, summer had an entirely different meaning to me. *Insert wavy screen and commence flashback...* (Kidding. Please don't.)
Summer meant no school, which was cause for much rejoicing. But summer also brought the heat, and it also meant that everything else in my life came to a screeching halt. Once the---what I call the May-hem---of the month of May had finally resolved all performances and ceremonies and recitals, June was the slam of solid impact and the resulting whiplash. I always loved the activities I was involved in, and before June was over I was missing them again.
In the ninth grade, I was able to join in the adult ministries at my church. Incidentally, Junior High was a miserable experience for me...you've aged out of your old activities, but haven't grown into the adult ministries yet. And usually too young to contribute to the youth group activities. Anyway, in the ninth grade I began attending the adult choir and orchestra, and hand bells, when we were fortunate enough to have those rehearsals. I entered the youth group, and was also involved in AWANA as a leader. And then I was enrolled in classes outside of my home, specifically for home-schoolers. Most of my high school years I played in a youth orchestra program with my violin, too. I loved all of these activities. But the ones I loved most by far were the rehearsals in the church.
Sure, the other activities had meaning and enjoyment for me. But classes were hard, and homework was a lot of pressure, on top of all the other difficult schoolwork that I struggled through alone at home. I loved the youth orchestra program because I loved the music and the conductors and the high standard to which we were held. However, the other children there were not people I could make friends with easily. I always found a knot of girls to hang out with, and perhaps one or two of those friendships have remained. But the rest were boisterous worldlings that had nothing in common with me.
Yes, I did love youth group. I loved the sound teaching, and I enjoyed being with kids my age, and all around my age! I enjoyed the atmosphere...sort of.
I knew I was different from the other kids. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I tried to make friends with them. I tried to talk with them and listen to them, but for the most part none of them wanted anything to do with me. The things they talked about, the places they went, the things they did were completely foreign to me. I couldn't be friends with them because they wouldn't let me. You know how high school girls are; they pursue their own agenda. They're busy trying to be or trying to hang out with or get in good with the Popular ones. The ones who did things, who had resources, and who actually got together with others for activities. The ninth grade girls fussed themselves up with stylish clothes and were consumed with volleyball or other sports. They prattled endlessly on about people I didn't know and about things I couldn't relate to. It was hard being a short girl with glasses and braces and bangs and shapeless jeans and t-shirts. No one reached out to me because everyone was so busy chasing after their own agenda.
In some ways, youth group was a lot harder than the orchestra program or the classes outside school. In those places I knew I was different, and I could at least eat with or sit with girls I knew. I could just listen and maybe contribute to the conversation if they were talking about a subject. It didn't matter too much if I was different there. In youth group, I wanted to be one of the other girls, or at least to be friends with them. But they ignored me. There were girls that I sensed had more to them than they let on, but the pressure was on me to reach out to them. They gave me nothing to go on, so it was uphill work.
It filled me at times with unspeakable anxiety and dread. I wanted so desperately to penetrate their shells and become a friend to any of them, if they would only let me in. But since they wouldn't, I was often horribly afraid that there was something wrong with or repulsive about me as a person. It was exhausting and emotionally draining, especially for me as an introvert. I was so very shy back then. There were times when I felt so painfully self-conscious that I would retreat to the bathroom and literally hide in one of the stalls until it was time for youth group to start.
Youth group had its joys, too. When the group of girls my age met after the sermon to discuss it and to share prayer requests, they were willing to open up a bit and be more vulnerable. But once we said amen and left that room, things went on just as they had before.
I tell you all of this to serve as a backdrop for what I really found enjoyment in: the choir and orchestra rehearsals at church. Those were the highlights of my week, and what got me through difficult days of impossible school concepts and piles of homework. There was spiritual refreshment in each song we sang or played. The beauty of them washed over me, purging away the clinging dread of every week. It let me out of the Normal, out of the ordinary, and into a world of beauty and light and color and music. A world of laughter, where adults were silly and told funny stories and teased each other. A world where friendships and comradeship existed between people despite the age differences. Where adults treated me as a friend and as a person of my own standing. Everyone was respectful of everyone else, and everyone shared what was on their hearts. I found comfort, real understanding, and spiritual teaching there. There was this joy that permeated the whole atmosphere. It tied everyone together, and everything was colored through with it. Everything from the beat-up music stands, to the smell of the old music sheets, to the clouds outside the windows. When we looked into each others' faces we saw a glow of understanding in the others' eyes. We comrades in this ministry, those of us who are here late on a Sunday afternoon, or lingering late on a Wednesday night...we know. We know this world and its beauty. No one out there, none of the rest of them have any clue what they're missing. But we're here together. We know.
Keep in mind that this was my experience for all the school year of each year of high school. School went from bad to worse, the other orchestra became more and more demanding, and youth group was hard. But when I had choir and orchestra rehearsals to get me through each week, I blossomed and grew.
And now, imagine June. The sudden absence of all the things that had filled my days was like having someone yank a rug out from under me. It flung me on my face. It was a welcome relief at first, but the Nothing that replaced it ate into my mind and my heart. Youth group went through the summer, thankfully, but with no rehearsals to balance it, the gloom and discouragement gnawed away at me unhindered.
During those summers, I maybe had a few once-a-week jobs, but I had no friends to hang out with, nowhere to go (I couldn't drive anyway), and I hated being outside in the heat and the humidity, where the bugs pounced on me the moment I stepped out the door.
On the positive side, one thing I have in common with Harry Potter is that I hated summer vacation more than any other time of the year, just like he did!
Each summer month grew harder as the slow weeks dragged by like frozen syrup. I longed for adventure, for new activities, but morning after morning I woke up and nothing happened. And nothing kept on happening. I made up stories in my mind of hidden passageways leading to hidden rooms, or of doors into magical worlds. I loved stories about summer time and of neighborhood "gangs," of children solving mysteries or discovering treasure or what not. I loved stories about dogs and animals that changed children's lives, (usually over the summer) like "Shiloh." I dreamed of faraway places. I dreamed of forests and endless trails and of following a Road somewhere, anywhere. I lived in the books I read and wrote in my journals. I made up stories in my head...and I missed keenly those days when pretend playing in the backyard was just as real as the yard itself.
The beauty of summer always mocked me before. I had pictures in my mind of wide open meadows with long grass and wildflowers. I loved the idea of mountains, and the idea of the beach, and of course I loved swimming. I had pictures of sailing on ships or boats, of water-skiing, or of paddling down a river in a canoe. I had fuzzy mental concepts of "summer camps," and of water balloon fights and campfires. I had pictures in my mind of friends in a car, driving down the road with the windows down, all singing at the tops of their voices. I had this idea of going roller skating, or shopping, or going to the movies, or of buying ice-cream late at night after youth group like the popular crowd occasionally did.
But what I experienced was burning pavement, and sticky air. What actually happened were days and days stretching by full of nothing. Days when I wandered and prowled about my house, feeling stir-crazy and discontent, but with nowhere to release my energy.
June was hot and boring. July was made up of dog-days of unbearable heat and restless longing. By the time August dragged in I felt like I was going crazy. Crazy with longing, crazy with loneliness, driven mad by the Promise of Summer that was mocking me because it never came true. I was dreading the opening of school again, but I was so desperate for my friends and for beauty and for interaction that my mind could sort of block it out.
By the time August was over and activities were ready to start again I was dying to go back. By that time I wanted August over and done with. As it dragged its slow days onward, I mentally kicked it out the door when September finally arrived.
I wasn't expecting to explain all of this when I started this post tonight. I think it was necessary to provide a good understanding of where I'm coming from. Perhaps the best thing to do will be to call it a night, publish what I have, and finish the original idea I had for the August post in a part 2!
~Cadenza
Summer has always been my least favorite season. I don't like the triple-digit temperatures. I don't like the air so humid that you almost have to wade through it. I strongly dislike feeling sticky with sweat. I hate how blazing and strident the sunlight is. It's too brash, it's too obvious. It's almost like having your eyes assaulted like your ears would be if someone were to sneak up behind you and shout in your ears.
In stories, summer is usually the time when good things happen. How many stories have you read that are set in summer? "That" summer. The summer before this happened, or the summer after something else happened. "That," summer where the boy met the girl. Summer romances, or exciting vacations, or the summer you thought would be boring until...fill in the blank. In the stories, summer brings healing to hurting hearts, and adventure and meaning to restless hearts. I see why the stories are that way, of course. There's no school in the summertime. And there's something about the summers of your life before jobs and real life set in, before college and responsibilities. You're old enough to know things, and still have time to care and to explore.
Don't get the impression that I'm being stuck up about the tropes of summertime stories. Tropes are tropes for a reason. They make good stories. I'm a bit rueful, perhaps, but only because my experiences with summer have been very different.
Each season's beauty fills me with longing. Each season seems to promise me something, though it never delivers on its promise. Springtime promises Resurrection. Of new, glorious, better Life after death.
Winter promises Adventure. The biting wind, the bare branches, and the starry sky fills me with the longing for adventure. For more than the life I'm living. For something to seek after and find, alongside comrades. Something to fight for, live for, and die for.
Autumn gives the promise of Immortality. I'll have to come back to that later.
Summer promises Fulfillment.
The promises overlap, of course. But they specially overlap when the seasons begin to blend.
Now, when I was younger, summer had an entirely different meaning to me. *Insert wavy screen and commence flashback...* (Kidding. Please don't.)
Summer meant no school, which was cause for much rejoicing. But summer also brought the heat, and it also meant that everything else in my life came to a screeching halt. Once the---what I call the May-hem---of the month of May had finally resolved all performances and ceremonies and recitals, June was the slam of solid impact and the resulting whiplash. I always loved the activities I was involved in, and before June was over I was missing them again.
In the ninth grade, I was able to join in the adult ministries at my church. Incidentally, Junior High was a miserable experience for me...you've aged out of your old activities, but haven't grown into the adult ministries yet. And usually too young to contribute to the youth group activities. Anyway, in the ninth grade I began attending the adult choir and orchestra, and hand bells, when we were fortunate enough to have those rehearsals. I entered the youth group, and was also involved in AWANA as a leader. And then I was enrolled in classes outside of my home, specifically for home-schoolers. Most of my high school years I played in a youth orchestra program with my violin, too. I loved all of these activities. But the ones I loved most by far were the rehearsals in the church.
Sure, the other activities had meaning and enjoyment for me. But classes were hard, and homework was a lot of pressure, on top of all the other difficult schoolwork that I struggled through alone at home. I loved the youth orchestra program because I loved the music and the conductors and the high standard to which we were held. However, the other children there were not people I could make friends with easily. I always found a knot of girls to hang out with, and perhaps one or two of those friendships have remained. But the rest were boisterous worldlings that had nothing in common with me.
Yes, I did love youth group. I loved the sound teaching, and I enjoyed being with kids my age, and all around my age! I enjoyed the atmosphere...sort of.
I knew I was different from the other kids. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I tried to make friends with them. I tried to talk with them and listen to them, but for the most part none of them wanted anything to do with me. The things they talked about, the places they went, the things they did were completely foreign to me. I couldn't be friends with them because they wouldn't let me. You know how high school girls are; they pursue their own agenda. They're busy trying to be or trying to hang out with or get in good with the Popular ones. The ones who did things, who had resources, and who actually got together with others for activities. The ninth grade girls fussed themselves up with stylish clothes and were consumed with volleyball or other sports. They prattled endlessly on about people I didn't know and about things I couldn't relate to. It was hard being a short girl with glasses and braces and bangs and shapeless jeans and t-shirts. No one reached out to me because everyone was so busy chasing after their own agenda.
In some ways, youth group was a lot harder than the orchestra program or the classes outside school. In those places I knew I was different, and I could at least eat with or sit with girls I knew. I could just listen and maybe contribute to the conversation if they were talking about a subject. It didn't matter too much if I was different there. In youth group, I wanted to be one of the other girls, or at least to be friends with them. But they ignored me. There were girls that I sensed had more to them than they let on, but the pressure was on me to reach out to them. They gave me nothing to go on, so it was uphill work.
It filled me at times with unspeakable anxiety and dread. I wanted so desperately to penetrate their shells and become a friend to any of them, if they would only let me in. But since they wouldn't, I was often horribly afraid that there was something wrong with or repulsive about me as a person. It was exhausting and emotionally draining, especially for me as an introvert. I was so very shy back then. There were times when I felt so painfully self-conscious that I would retreat to the bathroom and literally hide in one of the stalls until it was time for youth group to start.
Youth group had its joys, too. When the group of girls my age met after the sermon to discuss it and to share prayer requests, they were willing to open up a bit and be more vulnerable. But once we said amen and left that room, things went on just as they had before.
I tell you all of this to serve as a backdrop for what I really found enjoyment in: the choir and orchestra rehearsals at church. Those were the highlights of my week, and what got me through difficult days of impossible school concepts and piles of homework. There was spiritual refreshment in each song we sang or played. The beauty of them washed over me, purging away the clinging dread of every week. It let me out of the Normal, out of the ordinary, and into a world of beauty and light and color and music. A world of laughter, where adults were silly and told funny stories and teased each other. A world where friendships and comradeship existed between people despite the age differences. Where adults treated me as a friend and as a person of my own standing. Everyone was respectful of everyone else, and everyone shared what was on their hearts. I found comfort, real understanding, and spiritual teaching there. There was this joy that permeated the whole atmosphere. It tied everyone together, and everything was colored through with it. Everything from the beat-up music stands, to the smell of the old music sheets, to the clouds outside the windows. When we looked into each others' faces we saw a glow of understanding in the others' eyes. We comrades in this ministry, those of us who are here late on a Sunday afternoon, or lingering late on a Wednesday night...we know. We know this world and its beauty. No one out there, none of the rest of them have any clue what they're missing. But we're here together. We know.
Keep in mind that this was my experience for all the school year of each year of high school. School went from bad to worse, the other orchestra became more and more demanding, and youth group was hard. But when I had choir and orchestra rehearsals to get me through each week, I blossomed and grew.
And now, imagine June. The sudden absence of all the things that had filled my days was like having someone yank a rug out from under me. It flung me on my face. It was a welcome relief at first, but the Nothing that replaced it ate into my mind and my heart. Youth group went through the summer, thankfully, but with no rehearsals to balance it, the gloom and discouragement gnawed away at me unhindered.
During those summers, I maybe had a few once-a-week jobs, but I had no friends to hang out with, nowhere to go (I couldn't drive anyway), and I hated being outside in the heat and the humidity, where the bugs pounced on me the moment I stepped out the door.
On the positive side, one thing I have in common with Harry Potter is that I hated summer vacation more than any other time of the year, just like he did!
Each summer month grew harder as the slow weeks dragged by like frozen syrup. I longed for adventure, for new activities, but morning after morning I woke up and nothing happened. And nothing kept on happening. I made up stories in my mind of hidden passageways leading to hidden rooms, or of doors into magical worlds. I loved stories about summer time and of neighborhood "gangs," of children solving mysteries or discovering treasure or what not. I loved stories about dogs and animals that changed children's lives, (usually over the summer) like "Shiloh." I dreamed of faraway places. I dreamed of forests and endless trails and of following a Road somewhere, anywhere. I lived in the books I read and wrote in my journals. I made up stories in my head...and I missed keenly those days when pretend playing in the backyard was just as real as the yard itself.
The beauty of summer always mocked me before. I had pictures in my mind of wide open meadows with long grass and wildflowers. I loved the idea of mountains, and the idea of the beach, and of course I loved swimming. I had pictures of sailing on ships or boats, of water-skiing, or of paddling down a river in a canoe. I had fuzzy mental concepts of "summer camps," and of water balloon fights and campfires. I had pictures in my mind of friends in a car, driving down the road with the windows down, all singing at the tops of their voices. I had this idea of going roller skating, or shopping, or going to the movies, or of buying ice-cream late at night after youth group like the popular crowd occasionally did.
But what I experienced was burning pavement, and sticky air. What actually happened were days and days stretching by full of nothing. Days when I wandered and prowled about my house, feeling stir-crazy and discontent, but with nowhere to release my energy.
June was hot and boring. July was made up of dog-days of unbearable heat and restless longing. By the time August dragged in I felt like I was going crazy. Crazy with longing, crazy with loneliness, driven mad by the Promise of Summer that was mocking me because it never came true. I was dreading the opening of school again, but I was so desperate for my friends and for beauty and for interaction that my mind could sort of block it out.
By the time August was over and activities were ready to start again I was dying to go back. By that time I wanted August over and done with. As it dragged its slow days onward, I mentally kicked it out the door when September finally arrived.
I wasn't expecting to explain all of this when I started this post tonight. I think it was necessary to provide a good understanding of where I'm coming from. Perhaps the best thing to do will be to call it a night, publish what I have, and finish the original idea I had for the August post in a part 2!
~Cadenza
