Summer's End

It’s the first day of September and, although I know that fall is still a few weeks off, I can already feel it coming. The air has changed, have you noticed? And the light is dimmer now, more like a warming glow, instead of the brash bright heat we’ve been subjected to for the last few months. Summer is finally starting to wind down.

When I turned the page on my calendar today, I was greeted by a gorgeous photo of aspen trees in Colorado showing off their golden autumn dress. Here in the Bible Belt, the time for donning our fall colors isn’t due for a good month or so, but the sight of that photo made me smile and dream of the gilded yawn of summer before it drifts off to sleep.

The air outside is a bit crisper than usual for this time of year, and I suppose that, too, has influenced my change-of-season musings. All the flurry of back-to-school madness has calmed and there’s a little more time to stop and think; and to plan, of course, because to be too idle, even now, is a grave mistake. This is the calm before the storm. This is the time to be meticulous and set things in order. The holidays are right around the corner, and they show no mercy to harried, unprepared humans running amok in their attempts to complete all the promises they’ve made to themselves.

I think this year I will breathe it in. I will make myself slow down and appreciate the change in the light, the subtle drifts of the temperatures from warm to cold. And this month, as I plan and sort and hustle away the summertime goodies and prepare for the colder months like a squirrel, I will say goodbye to summer properly for the first time in ages. I admit, it has never been my favorite season, bringing on bouts of complaining come July and August of too much heat, too many bugs, too much bright light. And, when it’s all said and done, I have always left it so rudely, working right along into fall and winter, with barely a glance at its passing. But summer warms the bones and ripens the fruit and it isn’t right what little appreciation I’ve shown. It’s time to make amends and give this sunny, bountiful season some credit before it’s gone. Perhaps summer and I will be on better terms next year if I do.