JULY 6

A date, far less evocative than the day before, which like the Fourth of July can be rendered, The Fifth of July, suggesting as the latter does, with almost equal seriousness, a state of aftermath, hangover, disillusionment, the slow grinding weels of REALITY turning again.

There is a play by that name (The Fifth of July) that, though I’ve never seen it, probably touches on all those themes — if it lives up to any of my expectation, anyway. I believe it was a Vietnam War-related play, and so, yes, it must deal with the cold, somber, inescapable facts of life after battle.

July Fourth is independence, the wild, riotous delirium of the liberated, the license to blow things up and make noise and get loaded at picnics –or, for the respectable and sober, a red, white, and blue day of leisure and time to sit in lawn chairs or on blankets or on the grass with those you’ve married or sired, look skyward and watch spidery, glorious eruptions in the night sky. Diversion. Escape. Time Stopped in Darkness Spectacularly Illuminated. Celebration.

But July 6? Just the hot resumption of stopped time, second day back at work, summer’s near-median, well across the Mason-Dixon that separates reality from aspiration. Blessed forgetfulness –nearly forgotten. Time Marching On, past the sultry, dank interegnum of summer toward that old September Song.

But, might it also be the hour of that fantasmic Mid-Summer Night’s Dream?

I pray so.