This is my sixtieth summer. I don’t quite have the hang of it yet.

I’ve done all the important research: Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon were fantastic professors, taught me all about beach culture and how to “hang ten” on a surfboard and sing my summer feelings in groovy song. Admittedly, the majority of their wisdom did not effectively translate to my landlocked Kansas City existence. I eventually made the singing part work as a summer job, but the closest I ever got to surfing was skateboarding and watching Point Break.

My mother was a schoolteacher, so that cycle of summer vacation seemed natural to me. In fall, winter, and spring there were books to read, reports to write, pencils to mindlessly chew; but in the summer pressures lifted, and I could relax a little (when I wasn’t mowing grass or working at that singing job).

Now, nearly 40 years past any kind of educational cycle, it’s still harder for me to wake up and get out of the house in summer than the rest of the year. Surely I should be be-slippered and pajama-ed in front of a television with a huge bowl of colorful breakfast cereal on my lap, re-charging my gentle system from its three-quarters of a calendar year of diligent toil and focus.

But no. I put on actual pants and talk to people, nearly every day.

My family is in alignment with my seasonal malaise, which is supported most authentically by my high-school age daughter. She loved the first two weeks of summer vacation, but feels the dew has now evaporated from the lily and craves some kind of challenge.

Cleaning her room was her first adventure - the frenzy of studying for finals and creating year-end projects begat a creative tornado, whose aftermath was still clearly evident. But three days, a garbage bag, and a couple of strategic bookcases from IKEA later, that task was completed.

Even her phone, whose constant fountain of digital distraction had proven an absolute lifesaver against academic stress, now seems a bit much. She looks at it on-and-off during the day, but it is clearly a condiment without a burger to complement or french fries to enhance.

I see her particular near-boredom as the edge of true genius - this is when she might pick up her guitar and learn three chords and explode with a bunch of catchy tunes that rail against injustice, inspiring her generation and beginning our retirement plan.

That may not happen.

For now she’s making art and cooking and writing and starting to read a few books. Her chief complaint is that summer days are LONG. Even her attempts to sleep halfway through them are futile: the hours keep stretching languidly forward toward lazy late evening sunsets.

My wife is a casual athlete and should love the summer months, but for days on end we’ve had sweltering weather where it’s beyond impractical to run outside.

And she loves running. Outside.

So there is no clearer expression of human dissatisfaction than my wife’s face when forced by aggressive weather to workout inside and online, using those pastel colored little weights that I bought her non-ironically.

Observe her frustration. She is the lion given tofu for supper. She is an opera fan at a monster truck rally.

Her form is strong, her dedication pure, but her effort is disrespected by the Lilliputian stature of her digital instructors, the prison-cell-floor amount of space we have available in our apartment, and of course the Easter basket color of our weights. She is a mighty warrior, sitting on a folding lawn chair.

To make things worse, the blazing sun, cause of this discontent, continually mocks her by shining scornfully into the room, creating arrogant reflections on her iPad screen.

She is a Michelin star chef, dining at a Cheesecake Factory.

Summer time is different than regular time. It’s slower, somehow - weighted down with the responsibility of making crops grow and evenly tanning and supporting the hot dog industry. There is something tangible that relaxes our pace and ever so slightly lowers our shoulders, letting us breathe a bit easier.

I think that’s what bothers us now: the break in our relentless pace. I might eventually be able to run a (quarter) marathon, but if there was a nap break in the middle I don’t know if I’d have the wherewithal to finish it. Summer isn’t synonymous with “vacation” anymore: so if I’m not allowed to fully stop, I might as well just keep on going.

But time is an action noun, like river or snowstorm, always in motion. Today will not be tomorrow, now isn’t then, and soon enough there will be piles of homework, cool damp mornings to run in, and the darkness of a subterranean lair to wake up to.

Ah. Just gotta make it through summer.