It's September
Summer is over.
Yes, we're still getting warm days. Yes, I'm still wearing sleeveless tops and shorts. Yes, I'm still barbecuing. But the sun is turning. Every evening it sets earlier, at just after eight thirty, and every morning it gets up later, just before eight thirty. Close to sunset the air turns chill, and in the morning dew lies on the grass, and a blanket feels good at night.
Apples and peaches lie on the ground now, the few that have grown without being pecked or invaded. Different weeds grow, with different flowers and seeds. The Queen Anne's lace is become balls of seed. Some fields will have a bumper crop of them next year. The blackberries are ripening, and the birds are beating me to them.
Our daughter has left to Santiago to finish the two classes and end-of-school project she had left to do. The house is empty now. This week the schoolbuses will beging their routes again, and I'll hear them go by in the morning, the high school one at eight, and the primary school one at nine. When I go to the pharmacy down by the local primary school, I'll hear the children in the schoolyard, screaming and shouting at recess or gym class. Not that many are going to attend school next week, in our township. This week is also the local festival, in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Before being the patron saint of Mexico and appearing on an Indian's blanket, she was venerated in Guadalupe, Extremadura, where her statue was "miraculously" found.) Parents tend to take their kids to the festival at night, and let them sleep the next morning. As a consequence, school tends to begin with a week's delay here, since the first week nothing is done.
I don't like this lessening of days. It is the anteroom to the dark, cold winter, where nights are long and days are too short in their brevity. I don't like the false cheer of December nor the perpetual cold that just can't be banished from the house. Though extreme heat is also horrid, my soul revels in the warm summer weather, with long sunsets, and early sunrises. Nights, where you can sit for hours outside watching the stars, without wanting to rush inside, away from the cold.
I like mornings where I can throw on yesterday's clothes and go for my walk with it being neither too cold nor too hot. I don't like to think twice if I need to wear a sweatshirt or long pants. It's difficult enough figuring out what to definitely wear for the rest of the day, without thinking what to wear for a half-hour walk, as well. I like days when my feet in simple flats are never cold, and I don't feel the need to wear socks. Or be able to enjoy the ease of slipping on shorts without wrangling with the long legs of jeans. And not have to think about which t-shirt can go well with the sweater I want to wear (because my clothes don't seem to go well with each other no matter what I have bought).
But the cyclical nature of life means summer must be said good-bye to for a while. And I'm not rich enough to follow the sun across the world to live in perpetual summer.
Yes, we're still getting warm days. Yes, I'm still wearing sleeveless tops and shorts. Yes, I'm still barbecuing. But the sun is turning. Every evening it sets earlier, at just after eight thirty, and every morning it gets up later, just before eight thirty. Close to sunset the air turns chill, and in the morning dew lies on the grass, and a blanket feels good at night.
Apples and peaches lie on the ground now, the few that have grown without being pecked or invaded. Different weeds grow, with different flowers and seeds. The Queen Anne's lace is become balls of seed. Some fields will have a bumper crop of them next year. The blackberries are ripening, and the birds are beating me to them.
Our daughter has left to Santiago to finish the two classes and end-of-school project she had left to do. The house is empty now. This week the schoolbuses will beging their routes again, and I'll hear them go by in the morning, the high school one at eight, and the primary school one at nine. When I go to the pharmacy down by the local primary school, I'll hear the children in the schoolyard, screaming and shouting at recess or gym class. Not that many are going to attend school next week, in our township. This week is also the local festival, in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Before being the patron saint of Mexico and appearing on an Indian's blanket, she was venerated in Guadalupe, Extremadura, where her statue was "miraculously" found.) Parents tend to take their kids to the festival at night, and let them sleep the next morning. As a consequence, school tends to begin with a week's delay here, since the first week nothing is done.
I don't like this lessening of days. It is the anteroom to the dark, cold winter, where nights are long and days are too short in their brevity. I don't like the false cheer of December nor the perpetual cold that just can't be banished from the house. Though extreme heat is also horrid, my soul revels in the warm summer weather, with long sunsets, and early sunrises. Nights, where you can sit for hours outside watching the stars, without wanting to rush inside, away from the cold.
I like mornings where I can throw on yesterday's clothes and go for my walk with it being neither too cold nor too hot. I don't like to think twice if I need to wear a sweatshirt or long pants. It's difficult enough figuring out what to definitely wear for the rest of the day, without thinking what to wear for a half-hour walk, as well. I like days when my feet in simple flats are never cold, and I don't feel the need to wear socks. Or be able to enjoy the ease of slipping on shorts without wrangling with the long legs of jeans. And not have to think about which t-shirt can go well with the sweater I want to wear (because my clothes don't seem to go well with each other no matter what I have bought).
But the cyclical nature of life means summer must be said good-bye to for a while. And I'm not rich enough to follow the sun across the world to live in perpetual summer.
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