Between Summer and September

There is a liminal space of existence between August and autumn. Somewhere in the late weeks between summer and September, the world shifts into a Thursday-state-of-being.

During my half-hour walks to, from and around the neighborhood storm pond, I observe streets and yards lined with trees and bushes with boughs and branches heavy. The wax of ripening fruit is touched by the sun and warms until the breeze picks up its scent and whisks it between houses.

The days are growing cooler. Slower. Shorter. Days of watermelon, boat rides, tubing down the river, splashing cold water, darkening under the sun, picking blackberries, blueberries, building campfires out in the countryside, ice cream afternoons, sprinklers so the grass stays green, dogs barking, kids laughing, running barefoot in the yard, camping out under the stars – these days are diminishing.

It feels like yesterday I was out for a walk and got hit by a hailstorm so strong and so sudden, my sweatpants were soaked through by the time I sloshed over my threshold minutes later. How can that have been early July already?

Forest fires have ravaged, scorched, torn at the earth at several parts of the world. As the ashes begin to settle still the planet spins and pushes, the tides wash in and out. People are returning to their homes or waiting for word to do so, most completely in the dark as to what their future will look like from now on. They could not have known when the spring was ending that their lives would be warped before winter.

It is still warm outside. Summer clings to the hope that it can stay a little longer. Maybe it’ll see the kids to their first days of school, adults to university, new, returning, ending. These scorching days where you need to run back inside to grab sunscreen begin to dwindle.

And yet, it is cooling. The grass is yellowing despite the water, despite the mid-summer thunderstorms and the tender care of a bi-daily water - or whatever your neighborhood schedule turned out to be. I don't water my grass and it is lush as ever. Uncommon for August.

I associate memories with senses, with smells, sights, tastes, touches and temperatures. With oncoming autumn ushers in memories of heartache, root canals, coffees, emotions so strong I was once rocked to my core with how raw and real they were. I find mingled comfort and fear in the cycling of them, of their return after forgetting they'd existed in the first place. This change of the world around me has me remembering and thinking thoughts that have lain dormant since the last time it rolled around.

And as quickly as this transition has started, it is ending.

This space smells of apples, of baking, of open windows letting in the air of foliage tuning to autumnal frequency. The colours are changing. One of the trees I walk by during my outings to the storm pond released all of its leaves last week. They lay yellow on green, the forerunner to fall, and the waggling ducks of the pond track over them on their way to beak up seeds in back yards.

Mountains of red, gold, orange, yellow, brown, green leaves will soon freckle the streets, the roads, the yards, the dirt, the cars, our porches. Sweaters, pumpkins, rain, changing nature and changing lifestyles, they're all on the way.

I was ready for summer to end, tired of the heat. But the nostalgia that hangs in this transitory state between summer and September makes me miss it already, and it's not yet gone.

It's the eons old lesson that circles back around and reminds us: Time is passing. We grow. We move ever onward.

Time stops for no one.

Let us enjoy what little or lot we have left of it.