Mid-Summer Legends and Remembrances
The Fun Of Being Alive
What is Mid-Summers Eve?
Tonite, the eve of June 23rd, is Mid-Summer’s Eve. Legend has it that, according to Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, it’s a time for “high-spirited merry-making and light-hearted bewitchment.”
Mid-summer’s eve is also said to be “The holy feast of the Stillwaters, a New England sect thought up by author/illustrator Tasha Tudor. According to Ban Breathnach, “Tudor’s friends and family believed the little simple pleasures are meant to be savored and that nature is to be revered.”
Ban Breathnach goes on to say, “On Mid-summer’s eve, the Stillwaters have a great party, plenty of music, dancing in the barn, and a sumptuous summer supper.”
In other words, you’re supposed to be out and about, up to your knees in mischief of the good kind. And not bothering yourself about the mishaps of yesterday or the follies of the future.
Of course, nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, but Mid-Summer’s Day is also supposed to be the continuation of your partying.
Past Merry-making in Mon-Dak
Now I’m 69 years old. Thus, I think my partying days have been lost somewhere down that road of memories that I sometimes travel.
I particularly remember a long drive on a dark night for a bottle of Cold Duck with a friend. And merry-making in those days when you were visiting a friend who lived in rural Mon-Dak often meant giggling over waves of delight in your stomach while going a little too fast on a bumpy gravel road .
We were innocent and free in those days. We weren’t constantly trying to ‘influence other people’. Or watching doggie and kitty videos. Or even glued to a computer trying to learn how to succeed in business.
We were happy just hanging out together, dragging main. And looking to see who else we knew was doing the same thing.
We got all google-eyed over going to a movie starring popular movie heroes like Robert Redford or John Wayne.
And we didn’t need drugs to make us feel good. We didn’t need alcohol to get us high. It was fun just to be alive. And the minute we smelled pot, we were gone. We were outa there fast. No one was going to spoil our night of freedom.
For we had it all.
Even though we really didn’t know it at the time.
Single, Care-free and Simply Fun
For we were too busy enjoying ourselves to even think twice about anything too serious.
Even the thought of marriage was as far away as that travel to the moon was for John Glen. And we admired those guys who made the trip. But that didn’t mean we wanted to go on that journey.
For the single care-free simply fun life of Mary Richards, aka Mary Tyler Moore, was our dream.
And riding free across the prairie, whether on horse or by car, was all just part of the fun.
Today the roads are wide-open and easy-traveling. But they are also littered with traffic no matter where you go. People are out and about all right.
Everyone is.
Everyone is going somewhere, with someone … all the time. There’ isn’t a place anywhere that you go where someone isn’t already there. So, I don’t need a map or a guidebook to tell me where all the fun is.
For fun is being at home. In the peace and quiet of my living room. With the tv on my soaps. Me in my recliner with a book or a notepad, and my keyboard in my lap.
Sucking on a bottle of flavored water. Dreaming about the glories of yesterday and the hopes for tomorrow.
And writing about whatever pops into my head.
So, to you, my mid-summer’s eve may seem pretty quiet. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. For my thoughts about maybe seeing my grandkids tomorrow, on mid-summer’s day, makes me feel as excited as any girl at any age feels when she’s going out with people she really cares about.
And I may be over the hill, but I still feel like giggling at the possibility of that dip into the valley of tomorrow and what’s coming up over the next hill.
So don’t look for me at any big social gathering. Or anywhere you might think I’ll be. Because I’m exactly where I should be …
at home with my hopes and dreams.
Enjoying my mid-summer remembrances.