The best parts of summer for me are those rare moments when time and place and space feel suspended. It doesn’t happen for me often as an adult, so when there is such a moment, I try to make a mental snapshot and stick it in some corner of my mind. (Re-reading that sentence, I realize it sounds like a bad song lyric from the ’70s. But these happen when there is little time for genuine reflection.)
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine had a barbecue at her home, which is situated in the polar opposite location of my home, in Park Meadows — across the private golf course and an equal distance, I think, from the public Racquet Club. As the magpie flies, it is probably not quite two miles. It seemed reasonable to think riding my bike was a fine idea on a very warm night. Once there, I discovered at least half a dozen guests had done the same and ridden their bikes from various locations in and around Park Meadows. After hours of laughing and meeting new folks and fabulous food and wine it was time for me to leave. As I got on my bike, I realized the last time I had ridden a bike at night was, well, never.
On that particular Saturday night the air was cool and still and there wasn’t a car on the road. It wasn’t all that late, maybe 10:30 or so, but somehow the gods had conspired to suspend traffic and time. I pedaled and glided and glided and pedaled in the middle of the road. The sky was clear and the stars were set in place. I can’t exactly explain what that nighttime bike ride felt like, but it was slightly daring (for me) and exhilarating and strangely spiritual. I felt both alone and terribly connected. I arrived at home all too soon and tiptoed onto the back porch, which was rather silly, since I live there alone. Instead of the musical muted chatter that often floats through our little cul-de-sac in the evening, there was stillness. The only sound was the squeaking of the chain on my porch swing.
I don’t know how long I stayed outside; long enough to know I should either get a wrap or go to bed. And I finally opted to crawl under the covers and drift off thinking about all the favorite places in my life from where I had tried to name the nighttime constellations.
I awoke the next day refreshed. Besides the great meal and company of the evening before, the bike ride home had given me a kind of break from routine that was (temporarily) renewing.
My daughter-in-law recently left one job in Salt Lake City to pursue another. She had a week of planned transition. I admire her hard work and her parenting and her creating a successful marriage with my son, the absent-minded (truly) physicist. I proposed she and my daughter and I steal a weekday and celebrate her transition. We had a most indulgent day with multiple meals and spa treatments and a movie thrown in for good measure. In the process, we talked about jobs we would want if family and money were not concerns. When she, of the Eccles School of Business degree, declared she’d be a pastry chef, I was floored. In the spirit of full disclosure, my daughter said she would choose to be a helicopter pilot. I would be a travel writer. We shared the most important book we had ever read (you couldn’t cite the bible or the dictionary but all other works were fair game). The answers created more discussions of how reading the right book, at the right time, can change your life.
We tucked ourselves into a darkened theater and watched the perfect summer chick flick, “No Reservations” where we all shed a few tears and laughed out loud and sighed at both the fabulous food the movie chefs created and at Catherine Zeta Jones’ tender leading man, Aaron Eckhart. When I drove up the canyon late that day with the moon roof open in the still-warm night, I marveled at how easily I had let go of workday cares and joined in the spirit of the day. I don’t know why it seems so difficult to pull away from routine and make room for meaningful conversation but it does. And the fact that both daughters wanted to take a day for all of us together was both precious and rare.
This week my vacation/suspension time has involved the television and the remarkable Comcast feature of “On Demand.” It allows one the privilege of watching shows that may normally appear at the same time slot whenever you want to make them appear. The pair I caught up on this week included the HBO series “John From Cincinnati,” and from TNT, the new Holly Hunter show, “Saving Grace.” On the surface these shows have nothing in common. “John” is about a stranger who has shown up in the lives of an extraordinarily dysfunctional surfing family in Southern California and the characters that surround them. “Grace” is about a hard-boiled female homicide detective who doesn’t believe in God but nonetheless has drawn the attention of a tobacco-chewing, overweight, longhaired, T-shirt-wearing angel. Not unlike “The Medium” or even, in its own distorted way, “Big Love,” what these shows offer, besides a romp with great characters, is a chance to understand that so very many people are increasingly curious about connections to higher powers and how unconventional real spirituality can be.
This time of year, which is the busiest for my work, doesn’t allow for long vacations on sandy beaches or trips through old ruins or European museums. Renewing and re-creating are moments stolen here and there and, on rare occasions, moments given, suspended, extended, and remembered. Making the most of the fleeting days of summer is a challenge, but I plan to do my best to try and unplug and be open more often, on random days and nights, perhaps this very Sunday in the Park
Teri Orr is the director of the Park City Performing Arts Foundation that provides programming for the George S. and Delores Dore Eccles Center for the Performing Arts and the Big Stars Bright Nights Summer Concert Series at Deer Valley. Orr is also a former editor at The Park Record.