With my impending birthday, it really feels like summer is ending. My birthday always signaled the beginning of the end of summer. Days are getting noticeably shorter, the air feels like its in the last bursts of heat and humidity. Soon August will end, and fall will begin.
I read an article by Rick Bragg in Southern Living about how when he was a kid August would drag on forever, and I think I can remember those days, too. I used to go outside all the time. I'd be at the pool everyday, and play in creeks around my house, and draw elaborate hopscotch configurations with sidewalk chalk, and jump on a trampoline that my friend Lizzy owned. There were always fireflies to catch. Summer never ended. Now it always goes too fast, lost in a blur of adulthood.
But, what if it doesn't have to go in a blur? Let's hold onto August while we can! Days of sundresses and sandals, a trip to the beach in just a few days, the (temporary) end of my job in Foodways and the beginning of my life in a new city and a new graduate program. This month looks so jam-packed I can hardly hold it all in my head. I know that whatever I do it will go faster than I'd like, but maybe I can at least learn to savor it, instead of always looking ahead. Even if stores began to stock "Back to School" early last month (and next month, I'm sure, we'll be inundated with the first of the Christmas goods), maybe if we all collectively savor the time we can make August sweeter, if not longer.
This just made me miss real summer SO BAD. It's all fog and cold out here. We don't go outside.
ReplyDeleteisn't that funny? In my childhood memories, August is when the first real hot days of summer begin - ah, NW childhood. But as such, it's a precious month in my memory, too - when the days finally roll out hot and long and smelling of creosote and dust, and you know it's really that golden land of summer, indeed. I need to start looking for work, but I really just want to dwell here, in August, for a while =)
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