I’m hereby anointing today, Aug. 31, the last day of this month, as the official end of summer. Normally, I would mark the official end of summer on the Labor Day holiday. But, Labor Day 2020 feels off, coming as it is a full week later than where it fell last year on Sept 2. That’s about right for a year which will be forever characterized as chaotic and uncertain.
We’re all still reeling from the last five months of economic spiral, infection spread and street protests. Still trying to manage the long days which blur one into another — a never-ending longest day. There’s simply no need to drag out the summer season, such as it was, beyond today. Let’s call it a wrap right now.
Remember last summer? I do. I spent a lot of time visiting my beloved Martha’s Vineyard. Those memories seem like flashbacks to an imagined time. I sat on the beach for hours, settled in just a couple of feet away from other beachgoers. I walked the artisan/flea market circuit cheek by jowl next to other shoppers. I hopscotched from screened-in porch to screened-in porch, enjoying adult beverages and a lot of belly laughs in close groups of friends and people I just met. I stood in lines to get into popular restaurants and once inside squeezed around tables that didn’t have enough space for servers to get around. I rode in everybody’s car and hopped on the island bus, grabbing onto steel poles and brushing the seats where untold others sat. Simple joys that made me so, so happy.
In the waning days of last summer, I spontaneously bought a piece from a local craft artist. With pocket-sized wooden squares as her canvas, she recreated familiar island scenes not with paint, but with meticulously placed grains of sand and chunks of beach glass. She set the square pieces onto tiny easels. Each little scene was labeled family or fun with the hand-printed date, Martha’s Vineyard 2019, on the bottom. I chose fun and a scene of a beach glass bucket sitting on a glittery patch of sand. I keep that little wooden square next to my bed to remind me what real summer was like before.
Nothing like this year. I made it to Martha’s Vineyard exactly one time for a couple of days, squeezed around the July 4th holiday. I grabbed at it with both hands, lucky to be the recipient of a generous friend. COVID-19 set the boundaries for a very different experience — marked by masks and hand sanitizers and time spent at the house enjoying the view from the screened-in porch. Napping and quiet conversations were just the therapy I needed to feel relaxed and safe. Those few days were a gift, but I can’t help thinking the classic American summer of barbeques and bar hopping, theme parks, hugs and back slaps will only exist in the future, somewhere in a sanitized, isolated setting only available to the very few.
Perhaps the best take on this pandemic shaped summer is the latest social media pop-up — the 2020 virtual calendar challenge. Instagram posters, from boldface A-listers to regular folk, put together "pages" of their faces — close-up, happy faces in the emotional high of January, dour expressions during the low of the summer months. The challenge’s caption is pointed: hashtag #2020.
So why prolong this weird new normal of a summer? The signs of fall are here. Schools are reopening in some fashion — some already open — and we’ve just had a recent spate of 60-degree days. A psychic prompt if there ever was one. Leave it to Dunkin' Donuts to drop the hammer — the coffee chain’s pumpkin spiced menu items have been in stores for more than a week.
Goodbye, COVID-19 summer of 2020. We hardly knew you.
