“Rest is not idleness,” reminded British essayist John Lubbock in 1894’s “The Use of Life.”
“And to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time,” he added.
Summer arrives in earnest Wednesday next. At 12:24 a.m. There will be no bells to herald it. It will sneak in unnoticed as most of us, a long day long done, enter the deepest of our slumbers.
Summer will slide in as easily as the new mamma deer grazes on a nearby bank of annuals. Her spotted baby is nearby. Only mamma knows where; she intends to keep it that way.
Summer will murmur in on the waterfall of a neighbor’s koi pond. And as that first summer dawn arrives, the resident bullfrog will greet it. “Brekekekek coax coax” is how one Internet poster reminded that ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote out the sound. It’s a sound far more comforting than its spelling would indicate.
Summer’s first clouds will float in on the harmonies of the mourning doves, nested in a recess in a neighbor’s front porch. It is from these doves that the coming sweet chorus of songbirds will take its cue.
And we will rise at summer’s first light, notice the height of the cool grass under the now full canopy of the silver maple and understand what a popular place it will be as the heat of each coming day reaches its zenith.
We all would be remiss to not avail ourselves of the reflective and lazing opportunities this coming new summer offers. For far from a waste of time, they will be lovely exercises in time gained.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
