SUMMER OF LOVE
Photography by Marcel Dagenais
Words by Megan Martin

This photo was taken on one of the first hot days of summer. By hot I mean sticky hot, where you can see the thickness of the air and walking becomes more like wading. A beach trip with Marcel turned into a miniature triathalon.

We rode to the train on a BMX and a beach cruiser then lugged said vehicles to the F train and out to Coney Island. But we didn’t stop there. The mission was Fort Tilden. After riding for what felt like quite awhile—through boardwalks and trails made by both man and nature—we stopped for a sip of water. Marcel pointed to a bridge far off in the distance.

“We just have to cross that bridge.” Ummm… okay.

Soon with the knowledge that we would have to be across that bridge twice and back to the train so I could waitress that night, we tried to pick up the speed a bit. But beach cruisers really were built for just that: cruising.

Marcel became a tiny dot miles ahead as I slowly but acceptingly watched his shirtless back and black baseball cap pass further and further through the foreign streets of Brighton Beach. Sailboats lined a harbor and Russian restaurants lined the boulevard. A sea of traffic lined the highway as everyone seemed to have the same idea on this hottest of hot days.

As I pedaled past a baseball field, standing up to gain some momentum, the chain snapped off the bike and I stopped in exhaustion and sweatiness. I tried to call out to the dot ahead of me, but my voice hasn’t been the same since the great sickness of July 09. Eventually Marcel either heard me or realized that the dot that I was had become a stationary one. He was back at the baseball field in a matter of seconds greasing his hands with bike chain oil and asking me to “just lift the wheel!”

After the bike was repaired I told Marcel it was a sign that this little engine that could had become a little engine that didn’t feel like it anymore. We slowed our pedaling to a speed of leisure and headed back to where we came from.

A path through some brush led us to a dirty beach near mossy water where we stripped down to our unmentionables and sunk our feet, legs and hips just below sea level. Sand fleas jumped across our towels and various motor boats and jet skis created enough of a wake to emulate waves on our little makeshift beach. This was our summer of love, and even though we had already headed to and were coming back, the journey was really just beginning.

….

I suppose the summer of love started weeks before the seasonal thunder storms settled in. Everyone was unemployed by April or May, and that sobering question of “what am I doing with my life” became more of a universal state of mind rather than a troubling idea that pops up after too much weed, or too much sobriety. The thought of change—which came roaring into America with our first black president—became something inevitable, unavoidable. Whether we were fearful of it or joyful, it was thrust upon us as sure as the downpours of June.

With that also came a mixture of unease and relaxation. There was stress, but also a lot of free time to think and dream. It’s an Obama-nation and whether you were lucky enough to have secured a bartending gig before the bust on Wall Street, or at least the option of unemployment, lifestyles were being enveloped in a Sam Cooke lyric: a change is gonna come.

For me, it was more or less business as usual, but things were falling and erecting all around me: both of my parents and my older brother were laid off, as well as one of my best friends. 

My Dad considered buying a struggling business in lieu of a new job (which he couldn’t find) but instead in a moment of panic, or possibly one of clarity, decided to sell his beach house in southern California and move to the Midwest with his wife and three dogs, trading permanently sunny weather and California prices for seasons and a simpler life.

My mom stuck it out on the west coast—with frequent warnings to her only daughter about the importance of saving for retirement now instead of later. She was able to land a new job, and regardless, her smarts and practicality never led her too far from a packed daily schedule.

My brother was the first in our family of his generation to get married. Amidst the economic downturn, he brought our relatives together from various continents to celebrate with him and his beautiful new wife. And in true summer of love fashion, they are now expecting their first child. He applies to about 50 jobs a day.

Ms. Megan Cahn, my confidant and partner in crime, met me for beers on a warm day in June after discovering what she had been expecting (maybe not so soon, but inevitably) that Hearst was downsizing her publication to practically nothing and that despite all her hard work they would no longer be requiring her services as a web editor. The initial shock was disappointing, but she embraced the change as well. Instead of panicking and drinking herself into oblivion—okay, that happened on a couple nights—she decided to sublet her apartment and move to Berlin for two months, locking in a couple freelance gigs and spending her severance/unemployment abroad.

I am one of those who happen to have a bartending/waitressing job at an Irish Pub in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The alcohol industry thrives on both people’s success and their depression—and our bar is fortunate enough to have maintained a strong clientele even now.

Regardless of these mishaps or blessings in disguise, depending on how you view them, life seems to go on and people have repeatedly used “Summer of Love” to describe the past months and the ones to come. Maybe its because we are hopeful or maybe because we have no choice. Or maybe everyone is focusing more on lovin’ and livin’ than working.

…

After all of this I am back on dry land, bumping along the wooden boardwalk of Coney Island and dodging small children and large men in tiny banana hammocks.

Although much has changed and will likely continue to, there are some consistencies in this, my fourth, New York summer: the sweltering heat and the crashing thunderstorms that chases it away, the weekly fleeing of New Yorkers on a frequent basis and its effect on my paycheck, the animal attraction of young, beautiful people and the unrelenting drama that follows, the free concerts, the BBQs, the bike rides and journeys over bridges,
the escapes off the island and out of the city, the exhausting hikes up to many friends’ rooftops with six packs and a party, the mosquitoes and bugs and panting dogs sprawled across steaming sidewalks, and the smell of the subways.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about New York summers, or maybe life in general, it is that it’s essential to find a body of water – whether lake, pool, or ocean – at any cost accompanied by some sort of strong fruity cocktail and a group of your nearest and dearest. We’re all just livin’ the dream, one day at a time…