A Thoreau Summer

These long hot summer days remind me of the old hammock at the family cottage in the Finger Lakes. A relic of WWI, the hammock was brought back by my maternal grandfather. It was made of heavy grey canvas with dark letter stenciling. We kids spent hours swinging in it, and designing ever-more daring acrobatic feats.

This summer I have vowed to take some time in a hammock: to rock, to read, to think, and to sip some of Aunt Betty’s mint tea. Thoreau said it best in the following excerpt from his Journal:

I go forth to make new demands on life. I wish to begin this summer well; to do something in it worthy of it and me, to transcend my daily routine and that of my townsmen; to have my immortality now, that it be in the quality of my daily life…. I pray that the life of this spring and summer may ever lie fair in my memory. May I dare as I have never done! May I persevere as I have never done! May I purify myself anew as with fire and water, soul and body! May my melody not be wanting to the season! May I find myself to be a hunter of the beautiful, that naught escape me! May I attain to a youth never attained! I am eager to report the glory of the universe. May I be worthy to do it; to have got through with regarding human values, so as not to be distracted from regarding divine values.

Savor your summer,
Marjorie