Idiot summer. The summer when idiocy could breathe out. Be what it was. Stop pretending.
When we no longer tried to escape our stupidity. When we accepted it. Merged with it. Became one with it.
Stupidity summer. When summer was a diving bell. When you could sink into your idiocy. Explore it. Discover its depths.
Stunned summer, like a blow to the head. Summer stunned, reeling, staggering all around us. And we were staggering, too.
Our stupidity, joining the great stupidity. Our idiocy, joining the cosmic idiocy. The idiotic Creation.
And isn’t God an idiot, too? Wasn’t God always an idiot? Didn’t God sing his idiot’s song?
And we were being paid. We were being paid for this. Money credited into our accounts for this. Monthly salary payments for this.
Summer was working through us. Summer was thinking. Summer, reading. Philosophising. In us and through us.
Books whose pages turned in the sun. Books, left in fields. Books, lying open. Books, abandoned. Being read by the sky.
Trust in summer. That summer was Eternal. That summer would be there tomorrow. That the weeks would turn in summer. That weeks would pass in summer.
How many weeks before the start of the term? Before the start of the new academic year? Infinite weeks.
Weeks and weeks in the eternal. Weeks squared in the eternal. Turning there. Kept by the eternal. Held by the eternal. In eternity’s rhythm.
Summer strength. Summer weakness. Lying back into summer. Lying back, beneath the summer. Under it.
Summer passing over us. Vast summer skies. Vast clouds. That we could watch from our offices, our summer offices.
No one knocking on our office doors. No one calling for us. No one on the phone.
No meetings in our schedules. Rare emails. Just from subscriptions. Just from jobs.ac.uk. Just from Philos-l. No urgent academic matters to attend to.
Time – the gift of time. Time’s timing. Time’s whiling. The turning of time.
Wanderings. Trips to Marks and Spencers, for lunch. Trips to Beatdown Records, to browse LPs.
Gaps – but part of study, the rhythm of study. Trips out, but trips that would bring us back to study. Refreshed for study.
And didn’t we even go to the beach? Didn’t we even walk on Longsands. Walk at Blyth. Walk at Seaton Sluice. That was part of work. That respired in work. Afternoons, but part of work.
And evenings? To the Ouseburn Valley? To catch a film at the Star and Shadow? Evenings, but back by eleven. Back in bed. So we could be up at six, and ready for work.
And weren’t we ready for summer intrigues? For summer romance? For adventures in summer, now we were all wearing less?
Work in Progress 