The summers of my childhood were built upon expressions of wonder that rolled over fields and skittered across ponds, where “the future” didn’t exist because the present was so absorbing and delicious and deserving of one’s deepest attention. What followed it was a mystery—one to be quickly dismissed. There was grass, sky, bicycles, baseballs, TV sets, and a competition called Capture the Flag, in which kids scampered through nighttime lawns trying to find some kind of flag, the details of which escape me now. Our parents embraced our comradery and therefore didn’t call us in, even when the clock struck midnight.
When I say we were fully in the present, I mean right in it—a moment that was elastic enough to accommodate a full teenager. What wasn’t in there was worrying and planning and all that pesky future kind of stuff, happily relegated to the adults.
The sunshine tapped you on the shoulder in the morning, as if to say, “Goodness me, time is a wasting, let’s go!” Events unfolded. Discoveries were made. There was my mini-bike, a thigh-high motorcycle with a screaming engine that clearly didn’t understand its size. Though I never got it to travel more than a few feet, my excitement ran deep. And, of course, there was the suburban drone of lawn mowers—and because this was a time before efficiency, you never heard them in the early morning.
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Now, in the flush of latter years, summer tells a different kind of story, where tedious matters like schedules and “health” and finances enter the equation. Yes, the same sun beckons, and the grass and fields seek interaction, and even mountains and oceans at times call to you—all ways back into the moment, even if we might rebel at the end of a long drive in heavy traffic.
There are emails, Airbnbs, rest stops, products, wars, lunches, and other grown-up matters that can eject you out of the moment, right into cortisol overload. There is that oh-so-wonderful side of aging: fatigue and exhaustion.
One of my defenses against all that is time spent on my back patio, a concrete 6-by-8-foot rectangle that faces a crisp lawn and a dense woods beyond. When I was a boy, a patio was simply a surface to walk rapidly across toward the outside world and its thrills and distractions. Now, I look at it and think, “Hmm, yes, I think so,” and park myself on my chair.
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In my late teens, my friends and I pored through the books of Carlos Castaneda, a mystic who taught us about the spirits and sprites that live in trees, animating them with life. Castaneda took powerful hallucinogens to transport him from the mundane world to an in-between realm where he sought out these ethereal entities. Well, that sounded pretty good to us, though we had less falutin methods to transport us. We’d hike into the woods with our folding chairs in hand, settle in, and imagine the deep life in the wavering branches and leaves, luring us into mystery.
Now, I have the woods in view from my patio. And while my chemical state-changer of choice is simple coffee, still I seek to dip into the unknown, urged on by the multitude of sounds in those trees—chirps, caws, howls, rustles, flutters.
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Occasionally, a wild cat will tiptoe out from the underbrush. I respect these clever survivors, who live full lives without any access to Purina Cat Chow or Meow Mix. Once, a muscular black-and-white tabby emerged. I reached out, accidentally startling it. It swatted a lengthy claw at my calf, slicing open an artery that liberated some crimson-colored fluid. That took some mopping up, leaving a scar that will remain with me when the time comes that I won’t remember summers, birds, Capture the Flag, or possibly my younger days at all.
But never mind that. Last week, another feline stepped out, this one sleek and bright-eyed and very friendly, and again I tenuously offered an outstretched hand. I stroked her back very carefully, relieved to discover that her claws remained safely in their sheaths, though I will admit to being seriously on edge.
The other night, I awoke at 4 a.m., as happens now at times. I would give anything to be able to disappear into the bottomless, deep sleep of the days when I was obsessed with minibikes and running through the suburbs at night. I slid open the glass doors and stepped out onto the patio.
It was full night. The stars were glittering. The trees swayed in the breeze. I stood there, bathed in the quietude, lolling in the peace—mirroring the same attitude of the five white-tailed deer standing on the grass a few feet away, their backs aglow in the starlight.
Our eyes met. I held my breath. The deeper world presented itself. The moment opened up wide—so wide that I stepped right in. All that, on a little rectangle.
Read more from the author at www.WarrenGoldie.com and www.WakingMaya.com.