`Ordinary Times'

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

In the church calendar, these days are called "Ordinary Times" - life as usual, without anything "extra" ordinary. The church is neither looking forward to nor back at Easter or Christmas. Therefore the name "ordinary."

But it is a great misnomer, for these days are anything but ordinary. They are long, lush, lazy, lovely summer days, the best days, the most extraordinary days of the year.

I have spent them in the city on concrete and macadam, away from gas grills and green lawns and birds singing and crickets chirping. I have seen the summer sky only in slivers and squares, chips of blue wedged between gray buildings. The sun has totally eluded me. I know it's up there. I've felt its heat. But I have not seen it. Or the moon, except once, on the way home from a baseball game. Where the buildings parted, I glimpsed sky and a smooth, round sphere of white.

Summer is so different in the city. Not as rich and dazzling as it is in the suburbs or the country or by the shore. The trees are dwarfed even in the parks here and the flowers seem not as crisp. And yet, even bereft of hardy flowers, and sea and sand, the smell of the ocean, freshly cut grass, and all the things I associate with summer, these days are hardly ordinary at all.

The weather is not ordinary. Ordinary means a coat and gloves, a chill wind, cars kicking up mud, cold feet, hot tea. These are iced tea days.

The traffic is not ordinary. People are on foot, not huddled in their cars. They linger outdoors, strolling in parks, at the beach. They eat at outdoor cafes, stand on a corner talking.

The feeling in the air is not ordinary. There is a friendliness in the summer, in August most especially, a letting down of barriers, that doesn't exist at any other time of the year. People's reserve seems to soften like taffy in the sun.

And the rules are not ordinary. They have been relaxed, in some cases abandoned. Children get to stay up late in August, and go to movies in the middle of the week. They eat when they want and what they want. They have sleep-overs. They have fun.

Adults are laid back, too. August sighs and in its wake adults float for a while, away from their troubles, reading paperback novels in the backyard, watching the Red Sox, playing cards, sipping vodka and tonic and talking until late at night.

People don't run through August. They walk, even in the city. It isn't just the dense air or the sullen heat that slows their steps. It was far hotter in July. Nor is it the knowledge that September's knocking at the door. It's something else. Some invisible something that is in August air that seeps into pores to the heart and forces everyone to slow down.

Soon, too soon, autumn will come, and things will change - the air, the rules, habits, routines, everything.

Yet still we'll be in "Ordinary Times." All through September and October when the world, or at least our part of it, sprouts more colors than the Big Box of Crayola crayons.

"God comes to us in the little moments. This is the message of ordinary times," a priest tells me. "Most of life is made up of ordinary times full of extraordinary moments."