We are having a glorious July where I live in Poland. There have been pleasantly warm days. The birds are singing. The beer is cool. So, why does a sense of melancholy keep snaking around my consciousness? Well, for various reasons. I can’t claim to be the world’s most cheerful man. But one reason is that we have passed the summer solstice – the longest day of the year.
I find myself wondering how on Earth it is July when March feels so recent
However warm and bright it is, the days will soon grow colder and darker. The best is behind us. The worst lies ahead. Today we are enjoying the sunshine in our shorts but tomorrow we will be shivering in the dark at 5 p.m. Irrational? Of course. We should enjoy the time we have instead of feeling gloomy about the times to come. ‘Tis wealth enough of joy for me / In summer time to simply be,’ wrote Paul Laurence Dunbar. It should be so.
But knowing that this is true is not the same as feeling it. Moods are hard to reason with. For most of the time, to be clear, I enjoy the sun as much as anybody. Yet the gloom still sneaks in, and I cannot tame it any more than I could tame a black mamba.
I find myself wondering how on Earth it is July when March feels so recent. Did I hit my head and sleep through the past four months? What the hell have I been doing? If I really think about it, I can remember parties, and walks, and runs, and pints of Tyskie, but the memories do not feel intense enough to justify the passing of time. They feel like the products of a long weekend. Think of what I could have done…
I get home at 10 p.m. and think that I should go out again. It’s still warm! It isn’t completely dark yet! What should I be doing? Anything! Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
This is partly a result of ageing. Approaching my mid-thirties, I can’t help thinking about opportunities that have been wasted, and opportunities for which time is running out. Youth, like summer, once felt endless. Now it feels all too short.
Again, I know that this is an unhelpful way to think – a paralysing force, potentially, that keeps one trapped in angst. If Frank Sinatra had dwelled on his regrets then he might not have had the time to laugh, and love, and cry, and do things his way. Yet knowing this is not the same as feeling it. Gloom cannot be lectured away.
I’m not sad about the end of summer, which hasn’t happened yet, but about the end of an idealised summer – one that is rich, active, and idyllic. The real summer feels less satisfying because it doesn’t match the summer in my head. Sometimes, learning to appreciate life means learning not to overthink. It means taking a moment to see the sunlight dance on a lake or to hear crickets chirping as night falls. I should stop thinking about summer and start experiencing it. This might not completely comfort me when in the total black of a winter morning, but it’s something.
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