Summer Queen Speech -- Summer Of Ought Five
We are in the power of early summer in northern Illinois now, in the fat of my reign. Great blue herons, snowy egrets, night herons, and green herons are hunting frogs and minnows. Skunks, bunnies, possums, coons, and moles do what little furry things do, humping and eating and getting into things. Beetles are pushing out of the dirt, fully armored and glistening. Any day now, the lightning bugs will hatch.
The crows are nesting, too. Their eggs hatched just a couple of weeks ago. The parents take turns going for groceries–-you go over to the Summer Queen's palace, honey, pick me up a couple peanuts and some of that chicken skin and old cheese she has–-but mostly the young crows get insects and baby mice. They're the size of robins now, making a ‘waaa' noise like whiny babies everywhere.
Cricket frogs are making whoopee in wetlands, sounding like a thousand bossa-nova rhythm sections tuning up. Everything green has leapt out of the ground, trying to touch the sun.
Since I was a wee princess I've had moments when I could revisit this hour, or any other, if I knew how to recognize those moments and had the courage to time travel.
I've traveled forward to get good advice from my older self, or to remind her not to forget something. I've traveled backward hunting treasure. Or because I recognized this moment, heard my past self knocking, and remembered the message I'm supposed to give her.
I think it behooves the Summer Queen to tell you how to do this too, so that you can make the best parts of this summer available to yourself for another day in your past or in your future.
Here's how to do it.
Be stuck somewhere, somewhere near a window. It helps if it's raining. But mostly, stuck.
Be waiting. Have no idea when your waiting will be over. The way you feel, when you are about to have a time-machine moment, the waiting could go on forever.
Look out the window and float inside yourself. Wait. Be so bored you are beyond boredom, you are at peace with your boredom.
Wonder why you are here, but don't search for the answer.
When you first feel the opening, it's a bit like déjà vu. You will know the window is open when the answer comes. It comes without feelings, without opinions. You just know, and so what. You are hanging in mid-air between raindrops.
Now, listen. Somewhen out there, you are calling yourself from another window just like this one.
Whatever you-then needs from you-now will rise up in your mind and warm your chest. Try to focus on the view out the boring window while the conversation flows.
Ready? Let's try it.
Bored. Bored bored bored. This computer screen looks like it always looks, you don't know why you're even looking at it, but there's nothing else to stare at. You stare but you don't see.
The waiting is like a moment of pure space, and everything you were thinking about separates from you and disperses like a drop of soap in water, each thought expanding away from every other thought until your thoughts are atoms, too far apart to holler to each other.
Who are you? You are a bajillion thoughts that float so far apart that there is more space between thoughts than there are thoughts.
You've done this before. You just didn't remember until now.
Hello. Suddenly the space between thoughts seems to be filled by more thoughts. These are thoughts you recognize. You thought them already, when you were ten years older than you are now. It's like holding your own hand in the dark. If you weren't floating in the space between thoughts, you might think, this is cool. Who gets to talk first?
Stare at the screen. Feel the space between your thoughts.
Now might be a good time to send some of this summer to yourself.
Cricket noises and katydids ratchet up, along with tree-frogs singing kree, kree, and far away an ice cream truck jingles, and you-then thinks, Nice, and you-now thinks, Ain't seen nothin' yet. The air is full of the smell of roses and peonies and linden-tree blossoms and rain on the sidewalk.
How old are you now? Are all the yous out there clustering around their windows, sniffing, listening, thirsting for a whiff of your summer?
Along the crack in the sidewalk ants are piling up, waging terrible war on neighboring ants.
Robins run head-down cocking one eye at the ground, or sing their warbling song about rain.
Tremendous thunderheads pile up in the sky like mountains marching. Their tops are pink and yellow, glittering like real mountains. The wind changes. All the leaves flip over like grampaw holding out a palm, Yep, it's gonna rain all right.
Your new sneakers glow white in the gloaming.
Someone in a house nearby is playing a song you know.
Summer flows between you and you.
Time stands still.
Breathe in the summer air. Blow it out, a summer-scented kiss to yourself, somewhen.
From your Summer Queen of 2005
To all you Summer Kings and Queens, then and to come
Entire Contents Copyright 2005, The Green Man Review except where specifically noted. All Rights Reserved. Summer Queen Speech is copyrighted by Jennifer Stevenson with online rights reserved for Green Man Review.
Updated 11 Jan 2006, 23:23 Green Man Time (CE)