The Infinitude of Summer

Dear friend,

On mornings as golden as this one, it’s easy to forget what has befallen our world. My god, the birds were a symphony in the forest as we walked through trees now green with young leaves! The Swift River sang a chorus of rushing life heaped upon life, leaping and racing down from the mountains to our valley before heading home to the sea. 

We saw a young fox, but only after she saw us. Samwise and Emily were wonderful in staying with me for any wild movement is an invitation for Emily to dance, and Samwise to give chase. 

Fading are my winter memories. Gone are the morning gloves, worn as recently as a few days ago. Gone are the hiking pants, knit hats, and even the lightest jacket stays behind. I walked lightly through the column of trees with the lightest clothing, and even lighter spirits. The trails smell of summer now—that earthen mixture of warmth and cool swirling together with pine and decay. (That, and of bug spray.) 

Black fly season has begun, and the mosquitos are just as hungry, and more aggressive than the Memorial Day weekend tourists who are already pouring into North Conway. Whenever I think of the bugs, these pests that get everywhere and sow madness and itching, I’m reminded that they are feasts for the birds who fill our skies with hope, color, and song. 

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Now that warmer days are here; we stop at least once each walk to play the Inbounds game. Think of basketball and the inbound pass after a score or a turnover or timeout. I am the player tossing the ball into play. Samwise is the “big” who guards me. When I sit, and prepare to throw, he jumps up to block the ball. Only in our game the basketball is a medium size riverstone, rounded into a pleasing smooth orb by the strong current throwing endless pebbles against stone. 

What was it Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote? “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” A riverstone is perfection.

Emily plays the part of the darting defender who positions herself behind Samwise to chase after the ball after it gets beyond her teammate. 

In this game, it is imperative I throw with enough arc and force that neither of them can reach the stone. But it cannot be tossed too hard, because they have to think they have a chance at getting that elusive ball. 

This game excites Samwise to the point where he whimpers in excitement when I reload a handful of stones, collecting and piling them up as if they are January snowballs for a backyard battle. I fake a toss. Samwise leaps. I feint in the other direction with a pump fake. He throws his body that way. His mouth…his eyes are wide open. His tongue hangs out. Both ears flap with the kind of movement that would make Dumbo envious. He’s so obsessed, he froths at the mouth.

Behind him, Emily, the water bug, darts from fake throw to real throw, changing direction with instant precision. She watches the riverstone fly above and beyond reach, gives chase, and listens for that satisfied plunk. 

Now here’s where it gets tricky. For the plunk must truly offer that satisfied plunk. 

They have to make a solid sound for her to consider the next step being worth her time and effort. The stones cannot be too small nor too big. Each must have enough heft to create a soulful plop when it enters the water. Too little and it means nothing to her. Too big and there is an explosion of water. With the right sound, Emily reaches where the stone has disappeared into the shallow river and bends forward like an old woman struggling with her balance to pick carrots out of the garden. She thrusts her head under the clear, cool mountain water, her fanny wavers above in comparison, much like that of a duck. She keeps her head underwater for as long as thirty seconds. Then, rising like a sea monster in triumphant, large stone in her mouth, face and ears drenched and dripping. She labors with the larger stones (never the ones I’ve tossed), and waddles over a hundred other riverstones to return to us, where she drops her prize, shakes off the river, and prepares for the next throw. 

It is a simple game, but one in which all three of us enjoy for different reasons. 

It’s a summer game, and it reminds us the good weather has returned. Long live summer, no matter how many shadows of uncertainty darken our current times. On a splendid summer morning, especially the early hours before it gets too hot or buggy, there is an infinitude of possibilities.