A wish at the top of summer
/The Boston Herald
August 1, 1997
BEVERLY BECKHAM
'The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a ferris wheel when in pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after." - Natalie Babbitt
If I ruled the world, this first day of August would be a holiday - not a gift-giving, card-sending, let's-have-a-party-affair. We have enough of these.
Today would be a real holiday, not just from work, but from fear, pain, regret, medical diagnoses that slam the door shut on a life, wheelchairs, age, poverty, hopelessness, evil and death.
If I ruled the world, today would be perfect. The deaf would hear. The old would be young again and the young would be whatever they wanted. Everything man-made would stop so that man wouldn't have to work or worry, so that on this day all men would be free.
Trains, planes, phones, fax machines, pagers and computers, all our noisy, clumsy ways of transporting and communicating, wouldn't be necessary. People would communicate just by thinking, and there would be no lies, or ambition, or competition.
No aches, allergies, addictions. No, you can't do this because you're too young, too poor, too short, tall, thin, fat. You don't have the right clothes. You don't speak the right language. No boundaries. No restrictions at all.
You've always wanted to visit Ireland? You're there, wherever you want to be. At the family home, as it is, or was. You choose.
You want to see the child you buried or lost or haven't talked to in years? You want to talk to her now? Well, there she is.
No accusations. No bombs exploding in a marketplace. No bones in mass graves. No war and genocide. No rich and poor, smart and dumb, winner and loser. No greed, envy and hate, not even a memory of these things.
If I ruled the world, this first day of August would hang at the very top of the year, suspended above all the problems we've inherited, created, nurtured and bred. We'd get to see how encumbered we've made ourselves, how mired we are in small things. And we'd get a good view of all we still have, the untouched possibilities, everyday magic we hardly notice.
And this consciousness would linger. It wouldn't evaporate like dew when the ferris wheel began to move. The first day of August, we'd awaken like children, to the parade of wonders around us.
Stop and look. That's what this top-of-the-ferris-wheel day begs. Open the windows. Turn off the radio. Listen to the birds, dogs, the clatter of bikes, the chatter of people on the streets.
Watch the children, heads bent, walking together, absorbed in each other. Watch them run, skateboard, pedal and splash and make sand castles on a beach. Look at the babies in their carriages, every moment a pleasure.
Try to ignore what you always see: traffic and rude drivers and concrete and the clock ticking.
Time was when we really did roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Now we're emeshed in responsibility and routine. The papers report we're taking shorter vacations. Long weekends are replacing full weeks.
Savor this day. It's the top of the ferris wheel. It's the closest to perfect we have.
