By David Crow
Conversations
David Crow
Summertime has settled on New England.
That means many things. Among those things are oppressive heat and humidity. It’s as if nature heard our grumbling about the bone-rattling cold of New England winters and, with a smirk, gave us the exact opposite type of weather just to see how we like those apples.
With the heat and humidity comes another New England phenomenon: hustle and bustle. The pace of life in New England picks up during the summer. It’s as if we’ve been saving up stuff to do during the long winters and are now determined to get it all done before the leaves start to turn in the fall.
I try not to complain about New England summers because I used to spend summers with my grandparents in the Missouri Ozarks, where I learned what “hotter than the back roads of hades” meant. During those Ozark summers it seemed that the thermometer started the day around 95 degrees and by midday was well over 100 degrees. During those days I watched mirages dance in the thick summer air on my grandparents’ farm, and during July and August mowing hay on that tractor was like riding a convection oven inside a microwave.
It was there in the furnace of the Ozark summer that I learned the fine art of doing nothing. My grandparents were the busiest people I’ve ever met. They both had jobs, worked on the farm, volunteered, kept a garden, canned food and a thousand other things every day. Those two people in their sixties used to routinely work my brother and me into exhaustion.
Yet somehow after supper they always found time to go out on the front porch to just quietly sit and do nothing in the ebbing heat. My grandmother would put a pitcher of ice water on the table and take her seat in her rocking chair next to my grandfather. Then nothing would commence. Evening after evening my grandparents would sit on the porch, hand in hand, and gaze off at the setting sun.
Those evenings were never scripted. Sometimes we talked; sometimes we listened to the radio; sometimes a neighbor would come by; and sometimes we just sat still enjoying the little evening breezes. Once in a while, someone would suggest some activity. But grandpa would just say in his easy Ozark accent, “Oh, let’s just sit a spell.”
Maybe it really was a spell, because while the pat of grandma’s feet set the rhythm over which the cicadas and the tree frogs sang vespers, the hustle and bustle of the day would magically fade into the twilight.
At first, I had a lot of trouble doing nothing. My teenaged New England brain had a lot of schemes and plans that circled around in it. At that age it was hard to believe that schemes and plans could wait a while. The urge to fill up the quiet space with something was overwhelming at times, and in my anxiousness to get up to that something I would stand up and pace around and fidget.
But my grandparents never wavered. Slowly I began to get the hang of doing nothing. In time I looked forward to doing nothing. Doing nothing became my favorite part of those days with my grandparents. I learned a great deal about myself and about life in general doing nothing with them.
I still do a little bit of nothing every day, and I’ve had some of the best moments of my life while doing it.
The great philosopher Winnie the Pooh once said, “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something.” That’s a fact.
As the New England summer drags on I’d encourage you to get up to a little bit of nothing each day so your daily hustle and bustle can fade into the twilight. You might find it a bit frustrating at first, but if you stick with it, I can promise you some of the most magical moments of your life.
Until next time, y’all come out!
David Crow lives in Orange with his wife and three children. He practices law and he asks everyone to call him “Dave.” Only his mother and his wife call him “David,” and only when they’re mad at him. You can contact Dave at Sit.a.Spell.and.Visit@gmail.com. He’ll always find a half hour for a good chat.