Summertime Nostalgia

Ask, How long are you out for? and a cloud wiped the sun. The question trailed a whiff of autumn. All answers contemplated the end, the death of summer at its very beginning. Still waiting for the bay to warm up so you could go for a swim and already picturing it frozen over. Labor Day suddenly not so far off at all...The season had begun, we were proof of it, instrument of it, but things couldn't really get started until all the players took their marks, bounding down driveways, all gimme-fives. The others were necessary, and we needed word...Once we're all out, we can begin (Whitehead 2).


Benji's description of Sag Harbor and the atmosphere there is somewhat vague, but it still evokes feelings of nostalgia and happiness for me, and I'm sure for others. When he talks about Sag Harbor, it is kind of abstract, but the details he does give are mostly about locations or actions, such as going for a slice at Conca D'oro or not breathing when you pass the cemetery. Even when he is describing a person, the only description we get is of their "pleated salmon shorts," which gives the impression of a faceless, unimportant being. For all the "who's out here"'s and "the crew"'s that he drops, Benji doesn't seem to care too much about the people in Sag Harbor and that was what I had more trouble connecting with. The only time I've been to a summer home was when I went with a friend to her family's summer home that was a complex owned by various families. I loved my time there, but I didn't really know anyone besides my friend, so my memories are more of what I did, rather than who I did them with. However, last summer I started working at a camp that I had gone to for 5 years as a camper and it was for my time there that the quote above stirred up nostalgia for. Each year that I was a camper, I went with a huge group of friends from school and manipulated it so that we would all be in the same cabin. Once I was a counselor, I still had friends that came with me, but I met so many new people and became really close with them. Now when I go through my memories from last summer, I think more about who I was hanging out with. We didn't do anything exciting most of the time, usually just hang out in lawn chairs and gossip about campers, but I had so much fun. This winter we had a reunion and it was so exciting to see my friends from camp because we all live in different towns and have such different lives that we never really see each other during the year. I've been feeling pretty excited to go back to camp again this summer, and I identified with Benji's excitement in the car to get to Sag Harbor and see everybody, but I'm hoping that I don't build it up too much because I don't want this summer to be a flop. Maybe Benji's relationship to Sag Harbor is more of to the place than to the people, but I guess it just surprises me because the community of people who "summer" there seems to be so important and he doesn't seem to care too much.

Madame C Helps Jason T

But human beauty falls leaf by leaf. You miss the beginning. One tells one, No, I am tired or The day is bad, that is all. But later, one cannot contradict the mirror. Day by day by day it falls, until this vieille sorcière is all who remains, who uses cosmetician's potions to approximate her birth gift. Oh, people say, 'The old are still beautiful!' They patronize, they flatter, maybe they wish to comfort themselves. But no. Eating the roots of beauty is a...Insatiable, undestructible slug. 

-- Madame Crommelynck (Black Swan Green, 150)

Jason starts visiting Madame Crommelynck during chapter 7, or "Solarium," in Black Swan Green and she provides a new perspective for him. She is brutally honest and frank, but it is clear that she is trying to help Jason. The other people that Jason interacts with are his family and friends and Madame Crommelynck is unlike most of them. The kids at school have a complex set of rules for who can say what and when and half the time they don't understand or mean what they're saying. At home, Jason experiences harsh speech from and between his parents, but their motives seem to be more selfish. They are frank with each other because they want to hurt the other person. Julia calls Jason "thing" and taunts him, but then sugarcoats their parents' fights and tries to soften the blow of their crumbling marriage. Madame Crommelynck is the first person who is straight with Jason and wants to help him. She doesn't baby him like so many of the other people in his life do and she explains things to him. The quote above is just one of many examples of Madame Crommelynck telling Jason how life is; she doesn't water it down as she acknowledges a sad fact of life: we are all going to die someday and it won't necessarily be a walk in the park when we get older. These conversations with Madame Crommelynck are extremely important for Jason's coming of age as he is able to engage in an intellectual conversation and really think about life. She gives him the opportunity to question the world around him and encourages him as he questions what she is saying. It seems like this is the first time that Jason isn't just stumbling into an adult moment and faking it until he makes it. Yes, he sort of stumbled into his arrangement with her, but he could leave or respond differently to her prompts to think harder. Rather, Madame Crommelynck allows Jason to take his coming of age into his own hands a bit, and it is really exciting to see that milestone.