Summer’s over – so say the Cape, the Shore and the Sound. But summer homes in the country remain wide open.
Is summer a season? Obviously. It’s also a vibe. And in seasonal towns, both end hard and fast on Labor Day – no more white, no more linen, certainly no more white linen. Morning frost creeps into the garden, much to caterers’ dismay, and the beach – never quite that warm, even in August – becomes a non-starter. We all take the cue that the fun is over, it’s time to return to real life.
Two weeks drinking on a boat off Italy gives me the ick. Don’t tell that to my friends in Corporate America
The line between season and vibe blurs more incongruously in the country, however. The most noticeable tell is the traffic. In September, the Long Island Expressway shifts from getaway gridlock back to the normal commuter rush. Try getting up and out on the George Washington Bridge on a Friday afternoon, however, and just hope to arrive by dark. Until we see the autumnal rush of city idiots driving at 20mph to better “see the foliage,” summer in the country lives on in a gray area. Seasons are an astronomical fact, but upstate there isn’t a season in the cultural sense. That’s through no fault of our own.
Country geography necessarily means we’re all spread out. There’s no hyper-concentration of global dilettantes flying in for a season of events squeezed into three months and a 30-mile coast. No array of see-and-be-seen annual parties and fundraisers, hosted (and gatekept) by the same generational handful of families and foundations all within close proximity. We’re all free to come and go unbothered.
Less fabulously, there’s no strict cut-off for “summer” activities that can and cannot be done in the country. Riding, hiking, fishing – in many cases, these year-round leisure activities become even more culturally relevant once autumn hits in earnest. The temporary suspension of seriousness embraced as part of the summer season has no reason to live and die with beach traffic.
Without such an orchestrated season, there’s hardly a country notion of a “summer town.” Main Street remains open all year; it has no choice.
Seclusion and leisure are two great boons of the country – a seemingly unconstrained and endless summer, in vibe if not weather, where one is entitled to amuse himself as much as he sees fit. The weaker man may overindulge, living out this fantasy. “Oblomovism,” from the 19th-century Russian novel Oblomov, became a term to describe this exact type of comfortable, secluded landowner who eventually and inevitably falls into torturous idleness. But the country lifestyle comes with an inherent seriousness that is alien to the summer frivolity of the laptop class.
While the summer season never truly comes to an end in the country, it also, somewhat counterintuitively, can never truly begin. Privacy means doing a lot on your own; infinite leisure requires knowing where to draw the line. The country lifestyle requires restraint, self-sufficiency, perseverance – all of the virtues, inherited through blood, that were once required to keep and sow the land. Modern comforts make these virtues optional, but a respectable man quickly becomes a yokel if he forgets them.
So as my summer creeps toward its end, I’m not quite slowing down – but perhaps that’s because I never quite ramped up in the first place. The transition from summer to fall sees no distinguishable difference in my social schedule. Polo and steeplechase start back in September, and the festivities rival anything the peak Hamptons season has to offer. I’ve saved my annual fishing trip for colder weather, when the tuna make their final and most aggressive feeding run. My mother-in-law’s cutthroat garden club is still going strong, and she reminds us most days that we still have a lot of landscaping to do before winter. I’ll probably even drink a little too much cheap wine at an oyster bake and have a concerned friend take my keys; I do like country music, after all.
None of this precludes the obligation of keeping the farm, family and my full-time job together. But I’ve inherited a comfortable balance of work and play that stays in equilibrium year-round.
If I’m being honest, the idea of a 3 p.m. “Summer Friday” and two weeks binge drinking on a boat off Italy gives me the ick. Just don’t tell that to my friends in Corporate America. And whatever you do, please don’t tell them I’m still wearing white linen.
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