“Vi skal ikkje sova bort sumarnatta, ho er for ljos til det. Då skal vi vandra isaman ute, under dei lauvtunge tre.”
This is how the poem by Aslaug Låstad Lygre starts - We mustn’t sleep away a summer’s night, she’s too light for that. That’s the time to wander outside, together, underneath leaf-heavy trees. This poem, well known in her native Norway, goes on to describe wandering around in enjoyment of a night that feels remarkable in its lightness. I only just learned Aslaug wrote this poem while recovering from tuberculosis in a sanitarium full of people who wouldn’t be getting out alive (insert observation that we are all, in a sense, in recovery from something and none of us will be getting out of here). But I think most of us instinctively understand that a light summer’s evening is something to be cherished, regardless of the number remaining to us. This is a phenomenon where repetition makes the heart grow fonder.
I usually feel restless in the summer - it’s an itch to “make the most of it”, which then soon gives way to frustration that I inevitable have not done so. But this year I don’t feel like summer is getting away from me, but more like I’m walking in lockstep with it - I mentioned this to my friend while we were sitting outside a Soho ice cream shop the other night, and she said it's probably because I'm literally doing that. I'm halfway through my walk of London's Capital Ring, which loops around Big Ben at a radius of about ten miles, and it turns out this is the perfect time for me to do it: just when I thought I knew the city, I'm finding that I didn't. I always start the sections a little too late in the day and walk as the hours slip into the evening, marvelling that it’s still light past nine. Summer is for charging up the body, a battery that runs on light.
I’m going into my two week summer holiday soon - two weeks in a row is what you need to get your cortisol levels down, and then to enjoy them being down for a bit. This is a standard concept in Norway (if anything they take three weeks) and I didn’t use to do it in my early years of living in the UK, but since the pandemic I'm uncompromising about it - I make sure to take a couple weeks off in summer, as well as a proper Boxing Week at Christmas. The pandemic not only drained the barrel of every last drop of mental and emotional reserves for me, but it also seems to have punched a hole in said barrel - it can no longer go more than six months before needing a refill. And you know what - I don't hate it! There's always enough time to work and never enough for enjoyment, and delaying gratification is overrated. It’s not that I don’t think I can rely on the future, exactly - it’s more that I no longer think there’s anyone else who knows what’s best for me.
But we can rely on summer - it’s happening right now. I'm going for the golden trifecta of some European city chill, some London fun, and the occasional moment of that feeling I would have as a child, when it seemed like summer was fleeting but also endless. I can still feel the cool packed dirt under my bare feet as I walked along the road outside my house back then, going up to the hedgerows where there were clovers and oxeye daisies, soft mosses and wild strawberries. Even as a child I was eager to grow up and have the freedom to go my own way, and as an adult, summer is the time to carve out space to feel the things I’m longing to feel. Whatever that is for you, I hope you get it.
Writings
In space, no one can take your caffeine away - Compound Butter
I have a little story in the new issue of Compound Butter (the Play issue) about Star Trek and mankind's favourite vice still going strong at the edge of the universe. This magazine is not available outside the US, but you can read it here.
Readings
For this month's article recommendations from around the internet, head over to Reading List, Into the Summer double edition.