Edward Clark Potter:
Sleeping Infant Faun Visited by an Inquisitive Rabbit (1887–89)

"All might be right with the world contained within the midsummer guest bedroom walls."

Midsummer brings a lethargy every bit as overpowering as any mid-winter might induce. In both instances, the weather turns inconveniencing, even menacing, introducing a definite reduction in initiative. If I'm not finished with my outside work by ten in the morning, I'm best off just forgetting about making progress that day. When the mercury fails to make it below seventy overnight and has already climbed to eighty before six, its trajectory becomes obvious. This is a performance I've seen before. In my youth, I'd head for the swimming pool and stay in the deep end all afternoon. Now, I head for the guest bedroom to lie beneath a screaming ceiling fan to read another detective novel until I doze. I swear I never know where any of those afternoons go.

I later take to the back deck and water the planters. I'm apt to set the tractor sprinkler running on its track in an almost vain attempt to cool the air around me and raise the humidity. I'm still reading that novel, distracted when the cats appear seeking their al fresco supper, and when I remember to feed the pond fish who depend upon me for their sustenance, or so I suspect. I might pick away at preparing supper while taking refuge from The Muse's practicing for her piano lessons. She's a most inspired and dedicated student, and damned well needs to be to stomach playing those ear worm ditties until she almost achieves perfection.

I'd ventured out around midday, grateful that my pickup's air conditioning easily vanquishes hundred-degree temperatures. When I park the beast, I cover the inside of the windshield with thin nylon shades to keep the sun from rendering it impossible to touch my steering wheel when I return. I return home a scant hour later, ready to reassemble in the guest bedroom with my detective novel. I seem to be making no headway reading, but the book serves as more of a companion than an impending accomplishment. My purpose on these sorts of days devolves down into accomplishing nothing, or nothing further than whatever I'd achieved before about ten that morning. The rest seems most like a dream. I remember nothing. I was barely there, and that seems to be the underlying purpose: to simply disappear until later.

Are humans the only animal that struggles to permit themselves to relax? For most of my life, I never desired to hibernate, or Lowbernate, either. I tried to maintain my performance regardless of the weather, every bit as needy midwinter as I felt midsummer. I always felt as though I was running at least a little bit behind. Lately, though, I've started discovering the simple joy an afternoon nap can bring and how it tends to refresh me for whatever might come later that evening. I still feel as though I really should be more gainfully or meaningfully employed, but I crack that detective novel and allow a few hours to melt away when it's too hot to be doing much of anything outside, anyway. My Lowbernation serves as a back-handed form of liberation, requiring little more than my own permission to engage in.

The Muse will have spent her day out in the world, meeting people and cutting deals. She takes her public servant role seriously and never shirks. I have resisted considering myself retired, for I've seen what inevitably happens when people retire. They grow addled and flabby, and I do not want either of those to happen to me, though the flabby seems to be rounding the clubhouse turn anyway. I try to stay busy regardless of how damned tired I sometimes feel because I understand what happens when one loses their gumption. I sincerely intend to keep the inevitable eternally at bay, or usually, anyway. I make special contrition for my mid-season condition when it might be considered essential for my usual discipline to go to Hell. It appears that the heroes will ultimately vanquish the evil forces after all, as the detective novel moves toward its denouement. All might be right with the world contained within the midsummer guest bedroom walls.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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