A quick bit of housekeeping before the good stuff: I’m taking a vacation from posting for the next month. I will be back in mid-September with new posts.
When I initially wrote this post, I scheduled it to publish today, while my family was to be on a camping trip with another family—what would have been my two days of vacation this entire summer, if you call camping (sleeping on the ground) with young children and taking forever to fall asleep yourself due to fears of…everything a vacation. I guess I don’t, but I do love being in fresh air and nothing feels better to me than being immersed in a body of water, so I’m taking what I can get. And truly, what I have and what I am getting is a lot. That said, we didn’t end up going camping, sadly, because I’m too busy right now, but a couple weeks ago we spent one night at my brother-in-law’s family’s cottage, and it was glorious, and a necessary break, short though it was. Since the pandemic, I have often felt that we don’t know when we will get another opportunity, so it’s best to take it when it presents itself. That is never more true than when it comes to spending time with people.
At the same time, I hate that summer (my favourite season, but due to climate change, probably not for much longer) is the time of compulsory joy. I happen upon joy more easily than some people, but even I bristle at the notion that if you’re not taking advantage of all that summer has to offer, you are doing life wrong. For example, there’s a foreboding command in some circles of Mom blog hell that “we only have eighteen summers with our children.” This attitude to summer suggests that not having meticulously planned out a summer of excursions, luxurious treats, uninterrupted self improvement, and the perfect outfit to do it all in is a crime, and it’s urgent, whether or not you are a parent. It’s particularly odious because this very paltry notion of joy is actually a euphemism for consumption and spending. And of course, because it’s on display (on social media), if one is not say, on a beach in Europe or on a thrifting-and-regional-food road trip through the American Midwest (dreamy!) or atop a summit, it is nearly impossible not to feel a fear of missing out (FOMO). Of course I would rather be eating fried zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella on a parched, golden Italian hillside than sitting in my basement at the crack of dawn opening a Word document.
I’m not on Instagram much these days and I probably won’t go back (though don’t hold me to that because as my friend Elisa said in a text message recently, “we’re only human, after all”), but its picture is still as clear as a wildfire smoke-free day in my mind. Even if the behaviour of sharing on that platform is habitual and therefore not entirely intentional, it’s hard not to feel one is participating in a practice where images function primarily to flaunt. While my basement writing example may not be as picturesque as the landscapes of Italy, sharing it would flaunt that I’m writing—I’m productive, I’m up so early, I have time to myself, #amwriting, etcetera. The implication being that I’m in control of my humanly impulses in a way that others might desire to be in their own lives. Of course, none of that is the entire truth. But I can tell you that if I was instead on an Italian hillside, I would undoubtedly pull out my phone and look at some other woman’s Instagram photo of her blue-lit computer screen and feel guilty that I was on vacation and not doing more (or any) writing. Instagram is terrible in this way. And yet, we are drawn to it, and summer is one of its many high seasons.
What might be at the heart of summer’s compulsory joy is a particular North American notion of summer associated with school being out and the weather being generally good—already an anachronistic idea—that supposes it is a season when we are unencumbered by other responsibilities and free to do things that we might otherwise not get a chance to do. The summer bucket list makes me shudder. Even if we work Monday-Friday and have to squeeze all this summer doing into the space of a weekend, it feels like the required thing to do. That this is a privileged point-of-view is obvious, yet it still demands to be said: someone is cleaning the outdoor city pool, someone is spending hours overseeing that barbecue you detoured to eat, someone is driving your summer produce across a border, someone is at work and worried sick about their children during the months long break from school, someone wishes they had a passport that let them move so easily. I’m not trying to be a killjoy (though it’s not a bad position to take), but reflecting on a culture that I have participated in and that has held me in its sway for a long time. Still does. This post addresses me as much as anyone else.
In a roundabout way this is me trying to work out how the joys of our private lives being made public have displaced what a full, public life—one that is about ethics, reconciliation, service, and collectivity—with its distinct joys, could offer us. And what do we miss out on when the private loses its private-ness?
This summer, out of necessity and the coincidence of a few deadlines coming together at once, I am trying to sit with the occasional feeling of missing out and asking if it has to impoverish what I do have time for this season. My flower walks (simply walks in which I…look at and enjoy flowers), novels, my summer repertoire of vegetables in rivers of olive oil, talking to friends, sitting on our back deck and listening to the wind move the canopy of old trees, driving around listening to music, a lake dip or two, delighting my children with freezies and grocery store ice cream, stone fruit, and loose dresses. This is more or less what is around me, without much effort or intention on my part, and it brings me a sense of being in place, much like the thick noon hour heat that surrounds you like a chalk outline, tells you that you are here, returns you to this ripe place where you stand. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this the joy of missing out (JOMO), to use a desperately optimistic phrase that has gained some currency—I’m only human, after all, and do sometimes feel the urge to check on the summer doings of so-and-so, but I try to resist and opt for the weather that is right here.
Thanks for reading. See you in four weeks when I’ll resume a regular biweekly posting schedule.
I love the concept of JOMO, it's something I feel more and more lately. Also, it's neither here nor there (to evoke your old Substack name) but ... I miss seeing snippets of your life and thoughts (and outfits!) on Instagram!
ahh this is great. and a "flower walk"--how wonderful!