In the summer, when the days are hot and my house is too much like an oven to stay home any longer, I like to drive to a nearby beach. I bring a blanket and a book and I walk out on the giant bluff that overlooks the water. I spread out on the grass and try to read, but I’m usually too overcome by the view to manage more than a few distracted pages. The water is incredible on sunny days, bright and sparkling, always littered with dozens of sailboats. The tiny white triangles bob and weave, catching a breeze and venturing out into the shipping lanes where the great freighters will blast their warning again and again until the little boats move back into the sheltered coves close to shore. Across the water are the huge blue and white mountains of the Olympic Peninsula, giant beasts who reach so far into the sky that even the clouds have to change direction as they draw near to avoid colliding with the snow-covered peaks. There are train tracks at the foot of the bluff and I can never resist counting the cars as they pass, clacking along beneath me. My favorite is always the belly of the train, the mid-section that seems interminable after the engine has disappeared around the bend and the caboose is still nowhere in sight.
Those are healing days for me, long hours spent unmoving while my skin drinks in the warm air and my eyes water in the white summer light. I go there as much as I can during our fleeting dry season and while I am there I pay very, very close attention. I know that every afternoon I spend there is another day closer to the biting chill that autumn brings, the warning of the dark winter months ahead that seem to come sooner every year. I have to remember every detail of those sun-drunk afternoons so that on days like today, when the clouds blot out the daylight and the dreariness threatens to overwhelm me, I can close my eyes and imagine myself into summer. I bless my obscenely keen power of observation as I remember how the water sighs in August and the way the grass smells fresh and edible in the dehydrated depths of summer. I remember the way the heat of the sun works through my body, easing the tension out of my muscles like a slow and patient lover. If I close my eyes and remain motionless I can actually go there for a moment and experience it fully before the sound of the rain tapping against my window chases my thoughts away and I wake back up to a chilly, damp March.
I told a friend yesterday that I don’t believe in hope. I try to avoid setting my heart on things that may never come. That sounds so bitter unless you understand that the reason I choose not to hope for things is because I have a deep and unmoving faith in the turning of the seasons. Summer is the honeymoon of life, when the world is so hopelessly in love with itself that it can’t bear to let you sleep and must wake you early each morning, singing to you through your window. Autumn is the settling in, the getting comfortable. The letting go. Winter is the emptiness of lost love, a lonely echo of days that harbor so much grief they must die again each evening at five o’clock. And spring is forgiveness. A gentle, sweet kiss that graces your cheek, rewarding you for holding on to those last shreds of faith that winter almost stole away. Spring is a waking up, when even the trees decide to begin again and are suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, blushing with the soft green of newborn leaves. Hope is a lovely idea, but it could never work for me. I am terrified of winter, the way its darkness squeezes at my chest until I can barely breathe. The real March madness is the craziness that comes at the end of those despairing winter months, when the only thing that keeps you moving is the faith that spring is almost here.
I have held my faith like a rosary, running it through my fingers so frequently that its beads have been worn smooth, their edges losing all distinction. I cling to it with such ferocity because I know that it is stronger than I am. It has gotten me here, through another frightening winter, with only two days left until the worst is over. Spring comes on Friday, which means that my beloved summer will be here soon. I will fill up again on those lusty, honeymoon days and remember that darkness, too, has a purpose. Without it we wouldn’t so love the light.
Eric Kent