Summertime Standstill

The thing about summer is that it’s a time when there is a sense of escape – Meg Rosoff

Summer break. Summer Holidays. Summertime. It looks like summer is holding its own existence. Schools are closed over summer. Employees choose to take most of their leave. It's the period of time that even the greatest authors choose as the setting of famous novels where the characters start off in limbo. A brief period of time when everything seems possible and nothing is tangible.

"August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time." ―Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

It's really a time of disarray. The pause between inhale and exhale. I was never a fan of summer. I used to see it as a disruption, an abrupt seizing of a continuous path towards improvement. I failed, for many years, to see that pausing, is an act that requires great concentration. Introspection is a great stepping stone of self-growth.

Being unemployed during summer can impose, even more, a sense of restlessness. Holidays make no difference than any other day -just as weekends, but on a larger scale. There are people joining you on those long summer supposed-to-be-relaxing days, cherishing the moments that you want to cherish too, but you can't. Activities you would once jump in without a second thought, now seem overall unimportant under any context -the priority lies elsewhere and it's simply not relevant to do anything else. If you're a tad like me, you're looking into methods to further educate yourself, and sharpen your skills. Always on edge, always ready to jump ship and sail away to the hectic, ever-buzzing world of work.

Summer is ruthless. It demands its standstill. And with it, you have to stand still too. You can fight it, you can deny it all you want but eventually, you will have to surrender to it. Summer used to make me sad. It used to give me the gift of endless time that I did not want to utilize; unavoidably self reflect would turn into double pressure on the things I should be working on and I just wouldn't. Even the fun summers -the ones you talk about years later- full of adventures and laughter, seemed, when sober-minded, what they were; fun but irrelevant and untangible.

"The summer stretched out the daylight as if on a rack. Each moment was drawn out until its anatomy collapsed. Time broke down. The day progressed in an endless sequence of dead moments." ―China Miéville, Perdido Street Station

Until the decision is made, and you stand still with the summer. Willingly and effortfully concentrate on standing still. The ears are still buzzing, the eyes project memories and the mind bombards with thoughts that demand your attention. There's a Chinese standing meditation art [Zhàn zhuāng] which benefits muscle strength, breathing, posture, etc. Of course, everything related to Chinese meditation requires active participation from the mind as well as the body. Practicing a mind's standstill, a spirit's standstill can be as beneficial.

• Practice inactivity; it's hard. It's possibly the hardest you have to do. But when you resume action again, it will be concentrated fully on what needs to be acted upon.
• Media & Social Media fasting; cancel the noise and start listening to what is your own voice saying. At first, the force of inertia will dominate your voice but your will will overpower.
• Read. Isabelle Allende puts it this way: "All summer, I read fiction because you must read for the pleasure and beauty of it, and not only for research. I don't read thrillers, romance, or mystery, and I don't read self-help books because I don't believe in shortcuts and loopholes." I say, just read. The mind will do the rest.
• Water; make a commitment to submerge yourself daily in a body of water [sea, ocean, lake, river, pool -if it must be]. Floating annihilates the pressure of carrying your body weight and dissolves your tension physically and directly has the same benefits for your mind.
• Practice optimism; this one is tricky. Forced optimism can be toxic and have negative results. Natural optimism by changing a word on a thought, or laughing at not being too serious with yourself, will bring out kindness towards you.
• Observe and take notes. You will be surprised by the collection you will find in front of you after a few days. By the end of summer, you will know which ones are to keep and which ones are to be thrown away. Especially if you have become a natural at practicing optimism.

Summer marks change -brief or not, upcoming or past. They are both uninvited and yet expected. Taking that breath is the human thing to do.

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby