Magpie to the Morning

Illustration by Mark Armstrong It’s 6:42 in the morning and the sun is coming up over the East River.

It’s only the first week of September and already that old familiar chill of autumn is in the air. The breezes are shifting and so are the storefronts. All the neighborhood bars are taking their business indoors.

The summer’s gone now, and all along the East River Esplanade, so are the people.

Still, I enjoy the esplanade on mornings like this. I enjoy watching the barges as they roll their way upstream. I enjoy watching the planes as they descend into LaGuardia. I enjoy the fact that it’s work—and not alcohol—that’s kept me going through the night.

I enjoy a lot of things these days.

But Labor Day… Labor Day always makes me sad.

Labor Day makes me sad because it’s the end of something—the end of a season I’ve looked forward to for months, the end of an optimism that peaks around mid-June, the end of any hope that this would be the summer when I’d be fortunate enough to find a chick and fall in love again.

Labor Day makes me sad because it doesn’t mean the same thing to me that it used to.

As a teenager living at the Jersey shore, Labor Day meant thinning crowds and empty streets, less work and more free time. Labor Day meant the end of summer leases and the start of unemployment. As a teenager living at the Jersey shore, Labor Day meant that a lot of your best friends were leaving, and most of them were never coming back.

And perhaps that’s why all the local kids were so horribly fucked up. Imagine being raised in a place where everyone you grew attachments to was only passing through.

There seemed to be so much more at stake for each of us back then. We were all so young and ambitious and excited about becoming the people we aspired to be. We were able to get drunk and screw up without having to worry about the consequences. We were much more capable of dusting ourselves off and starting over again.

We were wasted and wonderful and we were wildly romantic.

And we swore we’d never change or grow old or become jaded like our parents.

Some of us never did.

One guy joined a rock band and another joined the cops. One guy sells insurance and another guy sells dope. One guy died on I-95. Two other girls got murdered.

And me? Well, I’m just sitting by the river, watching barges roll upstream, and thinking about the summer that’s just passed.

* * *

Woodstock turned 40 this past summer, and for the first time that I can remember, no one seemed to care. I mean, the publishers cashed in and so did the promoters. And the History Channel aired some “where are they now” thing meant to remind us all that the counterculture is now just the culture. And some of the original acts appeared onstage like relics in a vaudeville show. And at some point somewhere, it’s a safe bet Wavy Gravy appeared in a tie-dye haze and reminded everyone to stay groovy.

But the whole thing just felt kind of desperate and contrived, as if they were grasping for something that had drifted out of reach.

John Hughes died this summer and so did Michael Jackson. Ted Kennedy died this summer and so did Walter Cronkite. And Les Paul, well, he died too, and so did the dude from “Kung Fu.” DJ AM died this summer and so did Ed McMahon.

More than 170 US Troops died this summer in Afghanistan and Iraq.

My aunt died this summer and I didn’t find out until one week later.

This summer, I received an open container citation, just like back in college. This summer, I had my wallet stolen by a dude who claims to be my friend. This summer, I drank one girl off my mind in June, and dried out with another in July.

This summer, I was rejected by a girl in August who I’d been pursuing since mid-May.

This summer, I could feel that old familiar sting again—the kind that rises from your gut and reminds you that you’re alive. This summer, I thought a lot about a Neko Case song that felt so full of possibility when I heard it back in May:

Magpie comes a-calling, drops a marble from the sky.
Tin roof sounds alarming, “Wake up, child.”
“Let this be a warning,”
Says the magpie to the morning
Don’t let this fading summer pass you by,
Don’t let this fading summer pass you by.

This summer, I realized what an impact a few months can have on a song.

Watch: Neko Case, “Magpie to the Morning“ [at youtube.com]

Tags: Neko Case, Magpie to the Morning, Middle Cyclone