Summer's Dead, Long Live Summer

Dusty cars and dusty people with dusty tents and dusty coolers streamed back into the Bay Area today from Burning Man in Nevada. Two cars pulled up to this house: Our upstairs neighbor's rented van, and later, my car, driven by Peter.

The little kids and I yesterday did school shopping -- lunch boxes, notebooks, calculators, paper, pens, math supplies, etc. One thing we didn't have to buy this year -- pencils. I got the ones in this photo at a garage sale our neighbors across the street had a few weeks back.

The school year starts for the little guys on Wednesday. Peter leaves in two weeks for Cal Tech. Larry's starting Med School. Sometime soon, I'll start teaching memoir writing to boomers. Next Sunday, "Fall Ball" starts -- Aidan's sixth season of Little League. Julia and Aidan's soccer seasons are poised to begin.

While everyone celebrates the start of something, I'm in a more melancholy mood. Once again, summer has come to an end. This one was far better than I ever could have expected last spring. My expectation was to never leave town at all this summer; to work, and take care of the kids on weekends.

But I got three short vacations -- Mountain Home Ranch, Gold Country, and Vancouver. When I was a teenager, I used to mourn summer ending for all the usual reasons. Hot weather in Michigan typically fades by September. No more swimming, no more fishing. No more seeing the girls who were the object of my summer crushes. No more fresh blueberries or corn on the cob. (Note to youth: Everything was seasonal in the old days.)

This summer I felt closer to being a teenager than any in decades.

My big sister, Nancy, sent me an old photo today -- Christmas 1961. Kathy and I wear the classic glasses of the day. Carole didn't need any yet. Our nephew Jim was one.

It's the beginning of fall here. The apples fall in clusters out back, the grasses are brown, and the pumpkin plant knows it only has eight weeks to deliver its goods. You can never go back. You try to love someone; she leaves you. She says everything will change with time; that you'll both feel different in the future.

The future never arrives. All there is is the day to day. Day by day summer crawled along. Then, one day, a new breeze blew some fresh feelings your way. You remember the precise moment -- Golden Gate Park, the arboretum, early July. Suddenly all of your moods shifted.

If you are the type who likes to care for people, take care of them, give them things, like love, it becomes so ingrained as your habit that you forget that some people don't really want what you have to give. They find your attention unwanted, an unnecessary burden, an intrusion on their private existence. It's true that with separation you can begin to forget how to love someone, especially when it was someone who never wanted all your attention anyway. So, with the passage of time and distance, you begin to revert to your essential self, the one who loves without reservation, without conditions.

At this point, you can make a foolish mistake, perhaps out of nostalgia, or misguided sentimentalism. Never try to take care of someone who does not want to be taken care of. To do so is an insult to her, and deeply damaging to you.

There are breakups, and there's getting "obliterated." (Thanks, Shea.)

I hope I never get obliterated again. I know this much. The new David can still give his heart away freely. But he listens more carefully. Any reservations she might have are duly noted. I won't ever try to convince anyone anymore. And I won't chase after anyone.

If it's mutual, everything will fall into place in time. If it's one-sided, you get obliterated. I'm not doing the rescue thing ever again, and I'm not into getting obliterated by others; I'm good enough at finding my own self-destructive impulses, thank you.

Once Peter leaves for his PhD program, I'll be living alone 57% of the time, and my kids will be here 43% of the time, just like always. I'm single. I see friends, but at the end of the night I'm alone.

Why will I continue writing this blog? Because I hope to discover a new future for myself, and I hope to at least suggest another model for human love relationships than those many of us have experienced in the past. Something that can begin once our summers are past...