Sometime in my early teens, I discovered Carole King’s Rhymes and Reasons, and like I had done with Joni Mitchell’s Blue (was there ever a more perfect album?”), I listened to it over and over, embedding every nuance of note and syllable in my psyche, especially replaying the lyrical and gorgeously orchestrated “On the First Day of August.”
That song grabbed me from the core of my yearnings and dreams because, more than anything, I wanted someone to love me. To be honest, that was probably my biggest dream of all, even more than holding my first book of poetry in my hands or strolling up to the glittering stage to collect my Oscar (although I had my speech well-rehearsed).
I was a late bloomer when it came to the boyfriend game. While I didn’t realize it at the time, my inability to act like I didn’t care and my propensity to put myself out there like a labrador retriever puppy wiggling on his back didn’t win me dates except for mismatched matchmaking forays with boys so geeky they ignored me to read Dune. My step-sister devoted herself to finding me a date for the senior prom, which turned out to be a disaster, but I appreciate her persistence in asking so many guys. College, on the other hand, was better, but also worse because while everyone seemed up (more or less) for sex, few wanted anything beyond that (which brings to mind another Carole King song, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”).
I accumulated little badges of heartbreak like an Eagle Scout, and by the time I was 23, I felt too old for love. Then I hit the jackpot: meeting, getting involved with, marrying, having kiddos with, and now about 38 years since we were introduced, growing old with Ken. Which brings me back to “The First Night of August.”
In some of Ken and my early camping trips, often illegally setting up a tent in some hidden Kansas field or Colorado forest, it seemed we were always sleeping under the stars — aka in sudden storms that soaked us and almost blew away our tents or in the midst of a million mosquitoes with a mission — on the first night of August. Sometimes I would sing this song to him or at least hum it repeatedly in my head. As our camping trips expanded to fly-ridden yurts with three children who were fighting with each other over who wanted most to go home (although they say now they *ahem* loved those trips) or throwing up on each other from altitude sickness), I would still sing that song each August 1st, usually while walking to the car to get more blankets or see if I could find someone’s glasses.
Now — so far away from the days of taking a big vacation without fear and precision-planning, and so long after those toddlers and babies we camped with raced through campgrounds in their underwear — the song returns to me along with August 1st. The piano opening — each note ringing through my upstairs bedroom facing the backyard in Manalapan, New Jersey when I was 14 years gold and crazy-lonely — also rings through this surprisingly refreshing breeze on the porch as I watch the swaying hosta blossoms, the sleeping old dog, and Ken’s car, surely still under attack by packrats (another story). I sing along with King, all these years held in this song holding me:
“On the first day in August/I want to wake up by your side/After sleeping with you on the last night in July/In the morning/We’ll catch the sun rising/And we’ll chase it from the mountains to the bottom of the sea.” Listen to it yourself right here.
Whoever you are, I hope that something — if not someone — holds you in your dreams this first night of August.
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