Je t'aime , l'été!

My annual end-of-year post…I’d intended to write it yesterday, but got terribly busy (as is my wont on the last day of school).  So, now, being not as busy, I will write it.  I’ve got a long night of sleep, a day of lethargy, and most of a soy Café au Lait from Z and H (one of the best cafes in Hyde Park) in me.  Commence beasting.

My summer vacation started about as inauspiciously as one could imagine.  First, on endeavoring to get everything from my car to my apartment (a ponderous load on the last day of school every year, but hang those who talk of more than one trip!), I managed to douse myself with most of an iced coffee.  Next, after somehow getting everything inside my building (if there’s a video of this process, it may be viral by now), I checked my mail and found a notice from the Chicago Department of Finance – a red light camera ticket (which is BS…one hundred dollars of BS – and our second BS ticket in three weeks).  Then, on getting upstairs, intent on looking up my options for contesting my violation, my wife informed me that our wireless router had stopped working completely.  Thus a looming conversation with Comcast Customer Service.  Thus me unleashing a long string of unprintable words, and dropping all of my belongings in a heap by the front door, and raising my arms ineffectually, and hissing my rage heavenward.

Serenity now.  F*****g g*****n s**t.  Now!

After I had regained some semblance of composure, Patricia and I went out for our annual first night of summer sojourn, to La Pena Ecuadorian Restaurant, via the green and blue lines, in Chicago’s far away Portage Park neighborhood.  I look forward to it each year, and always order two packs of unopened second series Garbage Pail Kids from the 80s, which I open at La Pena, sort of as an homage to childhood (if not a celebration of my two plus month’s return to it).  And after our usual vegetarian meals, and coffee, and watching Team USA kick hell from Costa Rica, I began feeling a bit more on fleek, a bit less agitated.

It is summer vacation after all.

The clouds were evocative, on a cool, ambient night… I soon found myself singing “Summer Wind” in the voice of Martin Prince as we walked toward the train. 

Then home, the new Stephen King book, bed, oblivion, a meowing cat waking me up at, Holy Lord, 11:20.  I rose, in garish sun, feeling like a crackhead.

Today, I found out we have another ticket – a street cleaning violation from our trip to San Francisco over Spring Break…for parking on a street we searched thoroughly, almost obsessively, for signs…for which we received no actual ticket, only a notification that we were in violation and had to pay a $30 service fee for being late.

Serenity Now!

Anyway, I am now focusing on looking forward.  The convo with Comcast wasn’t all that bad.  They told me I have to exchange the modem (at least that’s free of charge), so tomorrow I have a bike ride through gang turf to look forward to.  I will contest the tickets, and look to have a good shot at winning (the one in SF, anyway).  I have the dishes done, and the apartment clean, and 1/3 of the Stephen King book done…and summer is starting to raise its voice and assert itself more and more.

And now, some random thoughts…

I will miss my graduating students much – I was their teacher for three years, and it seems surreal that they are moving on.  They chose me to deliver the keynote speech at this year’s graduation (June 12, 2:00, Calumet’s gym, do come), so that’s cool – a great way to say goodbye and one of the biggest honors of my life.  You guys are great, and thank you, and God’s speed!  (Now I just have to get my suit from the dry cleaners, and write a speech.  D’oh!)

This year, Patricia and I are traveling to England, for three and a half weeks towards the end of July.  One of my coworkers told me that that doesn’t sound like a very exotic location for me, especially considering that we went to Madagascar last year, and India a few years back.  I told her that this year, being as burned out as I am, I wanted a decidedly first world destination, one with trains traversing it, and vegetarian restaurants, and soy café au laits, and no imperative to press my awful French into service.  So, England.

The inspiration for the trip came a few years back, on the aforementioned (and very exotic) trip to India; we were traveling on a night train from Udaipur to Delhi, and I was reading, by headlamp, a book of ghost stories, listening to the rhythm of the rails and the soft murmurs of adjacent conversations.  One story in particular, called “Christmas Honeymoon” really caught my fancy.  It was about a married couple hiking through England on their honeymoon, at Christmas (not just a clever title then), who encountered a totally empty village that should not have been empty…steaming bowls of soup were on the tables in some of the houses’ kitchens, fires were lit, beds were turned back and rumpled, etc.

Though the story was creepy, filled with a profound sense of absence and nothingness, it made me long for such a trip, such a walking tour.

Flash forward four years…My co-teacher, Jim, loaned me a magazine about long-distant hikes in England, and we immediately went to planning the logistics of several nights backpacking in the hinterlands interspersed with stays at remote beds-and-breakfasts. (Patricia actually informed me she wants to hike all of the trails in England, so I’ll have to ask my principal and co-teacher if I can take a personal year next year.)

I’ve also discovered there’s a restaurant called The Slug and Lettuce in England, and we will eat British food there, if only because of the name.   And my favorite writer (David Mitchell) set many of his novels in England, and my favorite bands, Pink Floyd and Radiohead, hail from there (so Cambridge, Granchester Meadows, the River Cam, Battersea, Hull - we’re coming for you).  Yay!

So…I now feel better after my slow start to this break.

And it is now my intention to watch Portlandia and read more of Mr. King’s book, End of Watch, which is flipping incredible so far.

Welcome, summer.  Stay as long as you want!