The Summer Doldrums

I wonder whoever remembers their lessons from school well enough to remember the usage of the term “doldrums.”  At any rate, I am well and truly stuck there. How much of my malaise is the result of health issues, or relocation, or simply wallowing in self-pity I have no way of knowing. All I know is the feeling of listlessness and waiting for a breeze to my sails onto the next great adventure.

The doldrums is a colloquial expression derived
from historical maritime usage, which refers to
those parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific
Ocean affected by a low-pressure area around
the equator where the prevailing winds are calm.
The doldrums are also noted for calm periods
when the winds disappear altogether, trapping
sailing ships for periods of days or weeks. The
term appears to have arisen in the eighteenth
century, when trans-equator sailing voyages
became more common. In maritime usage, the
low pressure characteristics of the doldrums
are caused by the expanding atmosphere due
to heating at the equator, which makes the air
rise and travel north and south high in the
atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse
latitudes. Some of that air returns to the doldrums
through the trade winds. This process can lead to
light or variable winds and more severe weather,
in the form of squalls, thunderstorms, and
hurricanes. The doldrums are also noted for
calm periods when the winds disappear altogether,
trapping sail-powered boats for periods of days
or weeks. Colloquially, the “doldrums” are a
state of inactivity, mild depression, listlessness,
or stagnation.

I’m not sure I have ways of denoting seasons in my life. Some people make an effort to tan during the summer — to testify to others that they had leisure during the summer. Peggy seems, every August in particular, to memorialize the month with leg cramps.  I know others who begin at the first sign of Autumn baking for Christmas — a ritual that seems to last until 2 days before the holiday.

On the other hand, I don’t think I have any particular seasonal rituals.  I am generally oblivious to seasons. I’ve been known to paint a ceiling on Christmas Eve eve.  I used to wait till the week before Christmas to go Christmas shopping with a list of what I wanted to buy firmly in my head, only discover that what I wanted wasn’t available and end up purchasing completely different gifts that I was infinitely happier with than those the original plan called for.  When we are planning to go some place I am always working on somethine else until 2 or 3 minutes before time to leave and then I abandon what had attracted my attention in order to grab a coat and shoes and leave — on time.

In a lifetime I have rarely known the doldrums — those times of listlessness or stagnation — but at the moment I’m bobbing along on a sea of tranquility getting re-acquainted with their meaning.

I have commented over the past few years that since retiring I’m learning to enjoy sitting on a park bench and watching the world go by.  Several mornings a week in reasonably good weather (meaning not snowing like a son-of-a-gun or way below freezing) we take ourselves down to Veterans Park where we walk a little and sit a little — enjoying Lake Michigan and any souls venturing out on her at that moment.  It’s a time of supreme relaxation and conversation.  It’s probably the one place we both feel the most “at home.”  We have made a great many life decisions there and I suspect we’ll make a few more.  I expect the both of us will cast the other’s ashes here as well — if the family bothers to remember our wishes.

This idea of being happy and content just sitting in a place is new to me.  Last week while I was sitting in the hospital with Peggy I got to thinking about how many different “me’s” there have been in a lifetime.  I’m a lot different from the Boy Scout me, or the Pastor me, the manager me, and the desktop publisher me and the coach driver, or the longhaul trucker are all to be found in some vestige of who I am today but you won’t find much of them anymore.  I have always been intrigued by the old men — particularly old MEN — whom I knew in my youth of whom I had heard that they were “firebrands” and “crackerjacks” and all sorts of other evocative terms — but who — when I knew them — were quiet and reserved and gracious men of wisdom and intelligence.  I remember wondering how they made that transition from being a wild ball of fire to this sedate and quiet guy I’d been talking with.  I had no idea at the time.  I’m not sure I understand how the transition comes about even know when I sense that I’m in some stage of doing the same.

The changes in life — now — in this instant — make perfect sense.  I can’t say I wondered or worried about them in my youth; I was too busy to think about such stuff.  I had big ideas about big subjects on my brain — still do to some extent; none of them were about making money; they were all about ideas and trends and the philosophies that moved the planet — but I spend less time thinking about the big things and more time reflecting on the little ones.  After all, we have no guarantee of tomorrow.  Even the youngest among us.  What we have is the moment.  And how we use this moment matters.

I have several posts that I’m sitting on.  I wrote one, I know what I want to say in the other but I’m slow to put those words down in black on a white page. There’s a corner I want to turn with this blog and I need to be ready to turn it.   Perhaps when I finally do the listlessness will evaporate and purpose will return — I don’t know.  But that doesn’t change the fact that without regard to anything going on outside of my mind or body I have to be ready to commit to that direction and I’m not quite there yet.

So, it’s summer.  The doldrums are upon me, and I’ll bob along on the sea of tranquility until the breezes fill my sails and I near my destination.