The first clue is in the backyard. A man is grilling steaks. Another man, sipping a cocktail, chats with him while two women, also sipping cocktails, giggle over something one of them said under the patio umbrella. You might think that this is the summer we're looking for. After all, it is the very picture of summertime leisure. But it is lacking the tedium crucial to the summer we're looking for.

We're looking for something that involves whining.

Think, again, kids.

"There's nothing to do."

"You want something to do? Wash the car."

"Aww."

The second clue is on the beach. People are jumping into the surf, splashing and laughing. You know, by now, that this is decidedly not the summer we are looking for. But do you know why? No, not because it's fun. That's obvious. It is not the summer we're looking for, because the Beach Summer always existed and always will exist. It has no bearing on the disappearance of the summer we're hunting.

There was a word that I stumbled upon as a kid that I loved. The word is aestivate. Its definition is slightly different depending on which dictionary you are using, but I committed to memory the entry I came upon those many years ago and I still prefer to any other wording I have found: "to spend the summer in a state of torpor."

Isn't that lovely?

To spend the summer in a state of torpor.

Isn't that what summer is for?

To spend the summer … not all times of the year, just, specifically, summer … in a state of … as if it's a medical condition, particularly of the mysterious type that befell Southern ladies in Faulkner novels … torpor … what a word; you can feel it: sluggish and idle and melting.