Time Marches Deliberately On

Astronomical summer doesn't start for another few days, but it seems like summer is already half over.

I'm far enough away from school that I should no longer dwell on these things, but the whole concept of "summer" remains something I think about often.  Ignoring the first few years of life which are replete with childhood amnesia, early life is discreetly compartmentalized.  Agreeably so.  I don't know that this is good or bad - more than likely it is neither, and just what becomes the norm.
Each of those first years is broken into first semester, second semester and summer.  This pattern is offset from the calendar year, almost certainly since a previous agrarian time has the growing season offset from the calendar year.  School was secondary to the income and food when much of the population had to take advantage of what can be done spring through fall.  The fiscal year practiced by many businesses is more nebulous and doesn't count as the same, or similar thing, since it only exists on a handful of accountants' spreadsheets and can be any to-from date that a company chooses.

And so for some 20ish years, life is broken into three loosely detached sections, with summer being the most important.  It was with a harsh reality that I realized that after graduating college, the time dimension became much longer.  No more starting a new school year in September.  No more mending with a second semester after Christmas break.  No more throwing away the previous school year's notes, to summer's heat and humidity.  Once hired after college, the next transition looked like it would be...

I'm doing some body work on one of my cars right now.  The last time I've done any body work was about 20 years ago (on the same vehicle).  I've lost some of the skill required to do body work in the last 20 years, which means each step has been done very deliberately and only after thinking about it; the thinking has taken more time than the doing for some steps.  The deliberate work may also be influenced by by being in my mid-40's.  I think I was 26 when I last painted this car.  I don't remember 26 as well as I remember college.  Likely 26 may have been far enough into work life to already have some introduction to the monotony that was to get older.  Instead of years being broken into first semester, second semester and summer, days are broken into work, eat, sleep (repeat).
I'm both enjoying the body work on the car and being intimidated by it.  Cars are a hobby and nearly everything is fixable in body work short of a welding fire that sends the car into a molten inferno.  But my body work skills even in my mid 20's were adequate at best.
I'm compelled to get the car done with enough time to put at least a few miles on it yet this year.  To do that, my deliberate pace must continue deliberately progressing forward.

My Dad died two years ago on Father's Day.  Two years isn't that long - only a few percent of my life - but it doesn't seem possible that it has already been two years.  Time on the small scale can often drag on, slowly and deliberately.  Stepping back away from the immediate, time on the large scale accelerates toward the infinite.
My summer started with reading The Last Lecture by Randy Rausch - both he and my Dad died of pancreatic cancer.  Have big dreams, Randy Rausch says.  Bronnie Ware tells us to fulfill at least some of our dreams.  And yet, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want says Randy Rausch.

I have, or had, plans on visiting a tourist farm later this summer.  It is only a few hours away, and I could probably do it in one long day; although two days is more likely.   These plans keep getting moved back.  I've got the car's body work to plug away on.  I have a fall hunt that I need to maintain my fitness and rifle skills for.  I can't travel around Memorial Day or around Independence Day - too many other people travel during these times.  I'm making plans for the August eclipse.  The lawn needs to be mowed every once in a while.
As a result, my short adventure plans appear to be perpetually in the future.  Time marches deliberately on.

Astronomical summer doesn't start for another few days, but it seems like summer is already half over.


"...because down in my gut, I wanted nothing more than a clean bed and a bright room and something solid to call my own, at least until I got tired of it.  There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary and sort of comfortably detached." -Hunter S Thompson.