Well, I don’t know about you, but from where I stand the world looks a little dodgy these days.  As in, the wheels might soon fall off.  As Bob Dylan once pointed out, it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

Still, all the darkness in the world hasn’t yet managed to completely annihilate the levity and joy of summer.  The smell of newly mown grass and barbecue charcoal and backyard fire pits.  The feeling of sun upon an upturned face.  Just outside my window, in the boughs of the cherry tree, the birds are drunk with the ecstasy of their riotous song.  The smallest one on the highest branch is a real diva, apparently one hundred percent soul and three-quarters lung.

So, why don’t we heed her song and find a way to break free and let it all loose? Why don’t we take a summer vacation? After all, the likes of us made for cul-de-sacs and shopping mall parking lots.  We were made for scenic drives and picnics by the sea.

Pack your stuff, and we’ll leave right now.

Maybe we shouldn’t plan it out; just follow our hearts.  We’ll likely get all kinds of lost, but you never know what we will find.  I’ve heard some stories about strange and beautiful places.  Tango halls and volcanoes, butterflies the size of dinner plates, flying fish with human faces.

We’ll buy that old powder blue convertible Mercury we saw listed on Kijiji.  We’ll drive at night, all night long, top down, over the mountains and into the desert.  I can picture it now: the moon is new, no city lights at all, just the majesty of the stars and planets—glowing like a field of Japanese lanterns.  Your hair is tied up in a scarf like Bridget Bardot.  Our headlights sometimes pick out wild creatures in the woods, mysterious as shamans.

As we’re climbing through the clouds, you twist the tuning knob of the old radio too far to the left, and in the lush static we hear the voices of our lost loved ones telling amusing stories about the afterlife.  The station seems to be broadcasting from a place where they’ve learned to turn back time.  They’re playing one of those sad songs we’ve been singing along to for far too long.  But the melody is untied, being pulled back through all the melancholy verses, so that it becomes a song of newly minted love.

Once we reach our faraway land, we stop at a roadside church to light some candles, and we stumble across a midnight sermon.  The pastor there dresses like Elvis in velvet, and she preaches the ancient religion of Awe.  The congregation and the choir are singing brand new ancient hymns taught to them by mermaids, all of them drunk on their music just like my backyard songbirds.

At the end of the road, we set up our tent overlooking a sheltered bay at the edge of the world.  I know that someday we will have to return to the place we left behind – the world of politics and angry people, inboxes and cubicles.  But not just yet; I think we should stay for a while, at least.  Until we discover a new constellation and have left a million footprints in the sand.  At least until we find ourselves again and remember who we really are: one hundred percent soul, and three-quarters lung.