Summer Hours

Normally, I would be getting ready for bed around 10 PM, but tonight was different. The air was crisp with the smell of petrichor and a slight cool breeze. Drink in hand, I sat on the porch and wondered what could be and what was. I had a long, thousand foot gaze at nothing in particular. Another schluck of the cheap domestic beer assuaged the unpleasant feelings left behind from working a job that just didn't cut it. The din of the city and ruckus of the traffic was gone. Finally, a bit of serenity.

The days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter as we reach fever pitch towards the summer solstice. The sun is at its highest point and those who live in the lands of ice and snow (queue the Robert Plant wail in the Immigrant Song) spend at least 24 hours outside in their cabins drinking and enjoying life. In the US, Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer. Instead of remembering dead soldiers, most of us are getting shitfaced near a body of water.

I was recently chatting with a friend about the long weekend just passed and a lot of it, we were up late drinking, with a side of stinking. Looking back, I remember most of my summers in a browned-out state, memories bobbing to the top of the surface as if they were held to the bottom of a lake by hops and barley. Summer concerts, friends grilling outside, summer love, staying up late to have conversations with a friend - all of these things that we do. I often wondered if I was solar powered. After spending winters in Buffalo, trapped beneath layers of snow, I know spend winters drenched in torrential rain in Portland. It's easy to feel blue when all you see is gray. Needless to say, summers are meant to be cherished - none more than the denizens of the Northeast. Summers in Buffalo were abuzz with activity. Concerts, ethnic festivals, outdoor dining, girls in sundresses walking down Elmwood Avenue. Portland is much of the same, I just don't have the depth of experience as I do with Buffalo.

Summer is the thirst that cannot be slaked. It's like being adrift at sea and drinking salt water. No much how much you take in, you'll never be satiated. Summer usually comes on hard and fast and that's why we try to enjoy as much as it as we can. We binge on the sun because it gives us the energy to stay up that extra hour. Sometimes, we'll binge on the booze too. After all, that's what this blog is about. As with the summer sun, the line between too little and too much is the difference in wasting a sunny day inside watching mind-numbing TV and staying outside all day getting sun burned and heat stroke. In our pursuit of a good time, we fly like Icarus - too close to the sun and was crash back to earth unceremoniously. Dehydrated and hungover, we spend extra time in the shower in the hope that we absorb the water and minerals we last through a weekend at the cottage.

Moderation in all things, especially in moderation. The summer is when we seize the day because the sun has given us a few more hours to do so. To try to bottle the energy of the summer is a sin because it's the very essence of what makes it special. It's a fleeting moment in an otherwise dreary and mundane existence. So my advice is sunscreen and some extra water because snow is right around the corner.