I had the opportunity (well, it was more of a your turn) to take my youngest to football practice the first week of September. While I know, academically, that summer isn't really over (at least not until September 22nd), and there will be more warm days ahead, the bulk of summer is over and I am now looking at fall. Luckily, football practice was held that day at the field that abuts the local swimming hole. While he practiced, I walked disconsolately around the pond mourning another lost summer. As an aside here, my husband hates to have me take the child to football as I never can "report" on how the practice went as I never pay attention - but that would be a subject for a whole other post.
The signs are all there. The maple trees are starting to show their faintest orange tones, the grass by the pond is yellowing and laden with seeds, there is goose doo all over the beach - a sure sign that it isn't being used any more, and the crickets and other insects are singing louder and louder as if it were their last hurrah. One can even detect a different feel and smell in the air. And, of course, we're at football practice, there's no getting around it, fall is coming.
There are two sayings that I have particularly remembered regarding the end of summer. One was in a book of columns by Andy Rooney, the column in particular dealing with the month of August: "Never return in August to what you love". This saying always resonated with me as I feel - with my love of summer - that August is the end of everything. I don't mean that literally, I mean that as a person who looks forward to summer all year, the end of the summer - August - is a time of bittersweet feelings. It is still summer, but it is all unraveling so quickly.
Later, as an adult, I went looking for the rest of that poem and found that it was written by Bernice Kenyon (devilishly hard to find), is apparently titled "Return", and the part that speaks to me is:
"Never return in August to what you love,
Along the leaves will be rust,
And over the hedges, dust,
And in the air vague thunder and silence burning,
Choose some happier time for your returning."
The other saying is a somewhat shorter quote by Maxwell Anderson:
"Oh, it's a long, long, way from May to December, but the days grow short, when you reach September."
For me, both of those quotes align perfectly with my feelings of loss at the end of the summer. I miss all the extra daylight I had in May, June, and July, I have a vague feeling of foreboding for the upcoming colder months, and the knowledge that I will have to wait another year for summer to arrive is overwhelming. It seems that I feel the same sense of letdown at the end of summer that some people seem to feel over the passing of the Christmas holiday. Frankly for me, once Christmas is over, I am relieved - we are almost through the darkets part of winter and summer is coming once again. By the beginning of February when I can see the extra daylight, I am getting happier and by the beginning of March and daylight savings time, I am almost giddy.
Unfortunately I live in a family that is consumed by sports so for them, the end of summer is a good thing - fall is coming and so is football and soccer. When I mourn for the passing of summer, I mourn alone alongside several males who are looking forward to crisp air and games. The debate over the relative good of the fall and summer seasons will go on forever in my house although my husband agrees with me that being cold is not his pleasure. We shiver together from October through the beginning of May. Long underwear and layers are what get us through the colder months while we both long for warmer weather again.
Luckily there are things to like about all of the seasons, a crispness of air and gorgeous leaves in autumn, the first few snows and their serenity in winter, the breezes and fresh greenery of spring. I enjoy aspects of all the seasons but summer is my favorite and I am always reluctant to let it go. While I know in my heart that I would not like to live somewhere where the climate is generally temperate, the ending of the summer season always makes me question this belief...for a time.
