To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall.
– Ann Patchett
It FEELS like the end of summer.
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I go out to walk in the morning, and it is fresh and cool. Yesterday, the air was so cool that I pulled on my jeans jacket to walk through the quiet morning streets. Out front, leaves, already brown and crisp, left their green companions and drifted down into my yard.
Smaller trees line the hell strip on Yale Avenue. Their leaves are tiny, almost oval, and they have been turning golden and orange since August began. The wind riffles them as I walk by, and those leaves cascade like the glitter in a snow globe.
And the squirrels are out in force, not chasing each other, not playing, but intent on their jobs. Three scatter when I walk down the blacktopped driveway, which is laden with acorns. One wiry black squirrel runs ahead of me on the road. It carries treasure in its plumped-out cheeks.
I KNOW that summer stays, officially, until September 22. But.
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This weekend is ingrained in my consciousness as the back to school barrier, even after years of early-starting college classes.
Even though children here have been back in their classrooms for over two weeks.
Even though James is hard at this semester's college classes.
Still, this FEELS like back-to-school time, and all the bittersweet musings that entails.
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This has not been a monumental summer, not in terms of travel or adventure, but still, I'll be sorry to see it go. This was the summer the pigpen arose, and that will change our planting habits, I think, for years to come.
And one hot summer Saturday, when Mark was at a seminar, James and I drove to Newark and visited the Heisey Glass Museum. There are things in the soil of this sprawling state that give rise to both glass factories and ceramics manufacture. We had never explored the site where Augustus Heisey, in 1896, chose to start his own glass factory.
We expected, maybe, something small and humble, and we were blown away by the scope and detail and artistry in the museum.
Upstairs, a special section featured Heisey glass in Hollywood, and we could see photos of luminaries like Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, and Judy Garland, lifting Heisey glasses to their lips.
We bought treasures in the gift shop.
And that was memorable, of course, but the miraculous part of the trip was seeing, over the broad green fields that verge Route 16, a huge and stately swan fly by.
We were gob-smacked. I had never in my life seen such a formal, majestic, slow-flapping flight.
When we got home, I looked up 'swan in flight' on the Internet. Theastrologyweb.com told me this: If you see a lone swan flying, it suggests that something you have long hoped for will come true.
So it was the Summer of the Late Tomato. And it was the Summer of the Flying Swan.
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For Matthew, my daughter-in-law Julie, and the granddaughters, who have had too many losses into many recent years, it was a Summer of Shattering Loss. Julie's mother died suddenly at her home, and the loss of that beautiful woman, of that wonderful mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law, caused ripples that grew into the waves---the kind of waves that pull things loose from their moorings.
And, beyond the huge and inescapable personal loss, Cindy's sudden death sends a stark reminder that stands, implacable: time is finite. We do not have forever to implement our plans and to visit the ones we care about who are far away.
But COVID and lockdown pushed us firmly into our own little spaces, and, after the initial shock, I found I didn't mind so much. I burrowed, and the burrowing grew quite cozy.
This is fine, I thought, and I became a master on-line shopper, adept at hands-free grocery pick-up, seasoned at Zoom-ing.
But the gates have opened a little, and the ability to connect in real time, in close enough proximity to squeeze a hand and share a hug---that is back, with care and caution.
It is, maybe, the Summer of Careful Return, a summer of a new way of connecting that we'll carry forward into the months to come.
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Early this week, James didn't feel well, and that morphed into his being full-blown sick. We tested, of course, and the tests were negative, but, when fever flared and cough wouldn't calm, we masked up and took him to the doctor.
There, they tested for flu and COVID, and both tests came back negative.
"You," they told Jim, "have a really nasty cold."
A cold! It has been so long since such a thing entered the house, but James, who works at the college library, and goes to college classes, is now exposed to people, and so for him, this was the Summer That Colds Came Back.
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It was the summer of many things, some inconsequential, some significant, but the season shifts beneath our feet. It is dark, now, by 8:30 at night. It is dark at 6:00, when I get up to walk, and I make coffee and read papers and clean out email until the world lightens enough that I feel comfortable walking in it. And even in the full light, the deer fill the yard, stamp their feet at me. They wish me back in the house, back in the dark, leaving the morning world to them.
This is that overlap time, when leaves fall, but mowing the lawn still chews them up and makes them disappear. There are not enough leaves to rake into piles; there are not so few leaves that we can ignore their fall. We stand balanced on the fulcrum, exactly between summer and autumn.
It's a melancholy kind of time; these are yearning days, days when we don't want summer, quite, to go.
And yet, thoughts of crisp fall days, deep blue skies, Macintosh apples, pumpkins and gourds…Cool days when reading by the fire snuggled in a knit blanket is exquisite bliss…Clear nights when the warbled sound of the football games' announcer floats in the air, floats from the stadium several miles away.
James tells me today he has started his Christmas shopping.
Autumn is inevitable, and, once we pass through the gate completely, it will be a joy to be there.
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But not just yet. This morning I check the tomatoes, and I find they are loaded with blossoms, one opened into yellow triumph. Lush, ripe tomatoes, promise of summer, are yet to be fulfilled.
So we balance, not quite ready to let go, not quite willing to commit. It is Labor Day weekend, and we will savor both the summer and the fall.
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