SUMMERS FLEETING MOMENTS

                                    

 And so now the dog days of summer are upon us.  That quiet cove, in the lake you live on, is now overgrown with water lilies and duckweed. The lake seems uncommonly quiet once again, as the energy for playing on jet skies and speedboats amongst the younger set has dissipated, and at least for this year, it’s just not fun anymore. The fishing becomes more difficult with the heat and the bugs and all of the vegetation growing in the lake. People my age are content to just sit in the shade with a cool drink, and watch the last vestiges of summer slide away. We know we can squander the remnants of summer, but we can do little to make it last. Somehow, though, we’re not content to just fritter it away.

My garden is half-picked, and the apple trees are burdened down with fruit. Mowing grass early this spring, which was welcome exercise, has become a chore no one wants to do. You look at the honey-do list you made this spring, and yes, you did get the roof replaced and some new downspouts added, but so many things remain undone. “Maybe tomorrow” you say. Each day you notice that darkness comes earlier and earlier, and you think, wouldn’t it be nice if you lived in a world where every day would be like June 23^rd. A world where daytime and nighttime share the clock equally.

I have struggled for years to find an analogy that does justice to my thoughts—of summer winding down. Maybe it’s because for me, summer is the fun time; and maybe it’s because, at least in my mind, the seasons so closely mimic our own waning lives. Old age only serves to bring that thought front and center. August is the time of the year when the foliage may be bruised by summer storms and drought, but still holds its lovely green hue, the dominant background color that Mother Nature uses so well in her verdant pastures. All of the pretty flowers have long blossomed, and what is left is unexciting and mundane. The host plants live on, but without their colorful blossoms that were their focal point, no one notices them in the garden any more. They are just a silent silhouette of what they once were. I, too, was more attractive in my own springtime; but now I rely on cognition brought on from years of living life, for any recognition that may come my way.

Sometimes, it seems like life begins all over again each summer. It surely does for the flora and fauna. For some reason, it’s a romantic season full of new surprises every day. In the summertime, a soft rain pulls at the strings of your heart. In the fall, it is just damp and disappointing and reminiscent of the cold months ahead. But I feel, if we could hang onto summer forever, its special qualities would soon fade like the setting sun, for we need its “ups and downs” to make life interesting. Natalie Babbitt wrote, and I quote, “The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn. But the first week of August is motionless and hot. It is curiously silent too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons and sunsets smeared with too much color.”