It’s August now. It’s been both the longest and the shortest summer. I know summer as a season stretches on for many more weeks, far into September, but I just had my first 40-hour-and-then-some work-week at my new job, and it’s been exasperatingly grey and cold here recently, so in the practical sense of the term, my summer is over.
My new-to-San-Francisco friends keep saying, about the grey cold weather : “I guess I’m just not used to a San Francisco summer yet.” “Me neither,” I keep responding. I’ve only spent two summers in California, and even those were not entirely in San Francisco. Summer, to me, has always meant France, has always been Dordogne. It’s meant wheat fields and fruit trees and forrest walks and river swims. It’s been curvy country roads and hours spent reading in the grass and slow meals with friends under the shade of my favorite tree. As a San Franciscan without a real sense of seasons, I’ve conflated a time with a place.
One of these recent hot summer weekends in Sacramento, I spent the afternoon swimming and splashing and diving in the pool. For the first time in a while, it felt like real summer. Yet, as I floated on my back, instead of simply soaking in the California sun, I lamented being away from the french sky. In this big deep pool, I missed my neighbors’ small and shallow one, where all my splashing would have been scolded. Just like every time a moment began to feel like normal summer these past few months, I immediately thought and felt: “But it isn’t Dordogne.”
My phone keeps prompting me to look back at photos taken this time last year, which adds to the ever-present longing for another time and place. Over Zoom, my friends and I have repeated variations on: “We're so lucky we traveled like that last summer when we could; at least we have those moments to look back to.” But I think all the looking back to last summer only makes looking closely at this one more frustrating. With such a high bar set, this summer was already certain to pale in comparison, before we were all confined inside, and now it doesn’t even compete. For a while, it felt easier to pretend like summer wasn’t really happening, to stave off disappointment. Not that I’m not grateful for last summer, of course, but being grateful does little to soften the blow of present circumstances. More than missing the travel and the experiences, though, I miss the feeling. The feeling that what was ahead was worth being excited about. This time last year, the future looked uncertain, but shiny with possibilities and choices. Now, the uncertain future is grey and dull and bleak.
It hasn’t been all bad though, I don’t mean to bemoan the situation we’re all in, or to complain knowing I’m luckier than many. Just two weeks ago, I had a nearly normal summer trip to Ashland, OR. Mom and I drove north to visit Kathy and Ellie, Mom's childhood/life-long best friend and her daughter; and Pavlina, my college/life-long best friend, drove south to join us. We all greeted each other with a timid: “Is it okay if we hug?” and then giddily (and quickly) hugged, precautions be damned for a precious moment of physical contact. Our three-day trip was brief, but full of normal summer moments. We swam in the hotel pool and barbecued for dinner in the Carter's backyard. We wadded in the creek and walked through the park. We went on a beautiful hike on a segment of the Pacific Coast Trail, the mountain flowering in all colors imaginable, and picnicked under the pines. The tell-tale signs were there though, of course. Masks everywhere, six-feet distance markers on the floor. The kids in the hotel pool playing a new version of Marco Polo, where instead of saying “Marco,” they exclaimed “social distance” as they approached and ran from one another. And a stormy grey cloud hanging low in the sky, a foreboding reminder that not everything was normal, that everything was not normal.
My last summer visit to Ashland was about six years ago, one of those two summers away from France. Then, I’d picked blackberries till my fingers turned blue and baked a crumble with Ellie. This time, we brought a crumble from home, knowing we shouldn’t spend too long in the kitchen. Later that summer, I took a writing workshop at 826 Valencia, where I first learned to love the organization I’m just starting to work for. My other Californian summer was spent in Ojai, CA, living with extended family and working on a story-telling podcast, which likely also helped land me this job. That summer felt in many ways like this one - the same slow pace, the same comfortable isolation, with all my friends a FaceTime away, the same appreciation of the simple summer moments. They're not all bad, these summers away from Dordogne.
On a hike in Marin last month, on a bright sunny and warm day, I stumbled right upon a cherry tree, full with fruit, and nearly jumped for joy. I filled my hat with cherries, eating the reddest and ripest as I went. It wasn’t quite the same as picking the cherries off our trees in the garden in France, but the cherries were sweet and tangy all the same.
What I’ve learned:
When short on time or ingredients to make a rhubarb crumble, simply cooking down the rhubarb with sugar and enjoying it with ice cream is a perfect alternative.
That there are many more fruit trees and black berry bushes around the city than I would have guessed.
What I’m learning, or trying to learn:
How to write a bit more like this piece by Haley Nahman, which talks more about the strangeness of finding pockets of joy this summer and the complications of nostalgia, a topic that I only barely scrape the surface of here.
What I want to learn next:
How to organize a safe and fun Labor Day trip to round out this strange summer.