Author Natalie Babbitt, in her classic young adult novel Tuck Everlasting, described the first week of August as “the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”
She likened this week to the pause when the Ferris wheel stops at the very top—just before it tips forward and begins its downward rush.
These waning days of “real summer” are eerily quiet. Heat waves come and go and come again, wildfires mute the sun, my brilliantly blue hydrangeas are fading. The lawn doesn’t care if it gets mowed as it’s peak green slowly yellows. Even the beach is weary; sand soaked with suntan lotion, greasy underfoot, and all of a sudden, more boats are returning to the harbor than going out.
Labor Day looms.
Today, something akin to an airborne boulder shattered my Subaru’s passenger-side mirror and the internet went down. I lost a lot, and spent most of the morning fighting with Marriott for a refund I know I won’t get. Small stuff in the scheme of things, but harbingers nonetheless.
It’s a week when we’re holding our collective breath. Our phones don’t ring. If your inbox is like mine, it’s filled with away messages, Costco back-to-school specials, and wellness tips from CVS. There’s a reason August was called “the silly season,” coined by the media to describe late summer when politicians flee, the news cycle (theoretically) wanes, and zucchini recipes reign supreme.
But there’s nothing silly about a summer when civil discourse is anything but civil and the world feels as though it is hanging by a thread.
Maybe sitting in our swinging buckets at the top of the Ferris wheel isn’t altogether a bad thing to be doing right now. Tune out the cacophony. Feel the sun on your face. Kick your dangling feet. Dare yourself to pause in that weird liminal space.
Let go of the pressure to post, produce, update, organize, and optimize, to stop churning out content and looking for visibility hacks. Reclaim August for listening. For editing. For re-seeing.
A clearing.
As for me? I’m not multitasking. I’m not checking my metrics. I’m shutting down Zoom.
As.you can see, I’m trying very hard to take my own advice.
Happy August!
