Home – April 2016 – Endless Summer (you wish)

Well, I’m goin’ out west where I belong
Where the days are short and the nights are long
Where they walk and I’ll walk
They twist and I’ll twist
They shimmy and I’ll shimmy
They fly and I’ll fly
Well they’re out there a’havin’ fun
In that warm California sun.

  • California Sun, The Rivieras
Will

Possibly it began one morning with Shakespeare, while looking in the mirror, brushing his teeth, asking his reflection, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Since then (and likely before), the summer season has held ground as a multipurpose metaphor and simile, presiding whenever memories of warm breezes, white sand, and blue oceans were needed to defrost freeze-dried souls.

As we unclench our jaws and inspect our cars for salt damage, Ottawans turn red-rimmed eyes to a strange, yellow ball in the sky that hasn’t been seen in months. Flowers begin their brave, if not fated, push up from life-destroying leda clay to the nourishing elements of the sky.

Let us now set the tone of this issue of Live Laugh Learn by recalling timeless impressions of summer by writers from yesteryear, focusing their observations on the season that is, easily, the most fun.Endless

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. – Albert Camus

In summer, the song sings itself. – William Carlos Williams

A life without love is like a year without summer. – Swedish Proverb

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. – John Steinbeck

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly…. – Pablo Neruda

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. – Henry James

Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. – Charles Dickens