The witch hazel tree, first to bloom, is also the first to turn. But this year, other trees are following suit. Cold evenings have also tinged the maples and oaks.
In the garden, the weeds I haven’t pulled are thinning and retreating on their own. Summer is giving up the ghost.
It’s a new month, an autumnal month. And months matter more in this time of few markers.
Approximately one hour from now the Northern Hemisphere will leave summer behind and enter fall. While there is plenty of reason to mourn this passage — and I will certainly miss summer— there is something about these days, one in the spring and the fall, these equinox days of perfect balance, that I always admire.
It has something to do with moderation and tolerance, with being able to hold in one’s mind two opposite thoughts and feelings. Here we are with summer flowers and autumn chill. I like the variety of the day. It is a hinge, a bridge, a passageway.
So instead of concentrating on what we’re losing, I’m going to try and think about what we have today. In this moment we are perfectly balanced: a rarity in nature and in time.
This morning’s walk gave me a taste of fall: brown leaves on the roadside, thick clouds in the sky. There were fewer people about, and I picked up my pace just to get warm.
Autumn arrives next week, but tell that to the crickets, which are chirping more slowly these days, and to the cicadas, which aren’t chirping at all.
Working outside now, I glance up at the roses that twine on top of the pergola, a few of them in second bloom. I notice how thinned out they have become, how fragile.
It’s still a humid, green world, but the edges are peeling away to reveal what’s been hidden beneath all the time: the bare trunks of winter, the quiet sigh of fall.
My once-shaded morning spot is now striped with sunlight as greenery thins and light lowers. To listen to the cicadas you’d never know that summer is winding down. They’re as whirring and wonderful as ever.
But to this stationary human, it’s all in the angles and shadows: not just a later sunrise and an earlier sunset, but countless other reminders based on known shadow points.
Sometimes I feel like a sundial, my movements charted and parsed, my dial controlled by a vast, uncontrollable force.
The climbing rose is losing its leaves and there are fewer rose hips than last year. Is the plant ailing or just tired after a long summer of heat and humidity? Probably a little of both. But it’s not just the rose; it’s all the plants, the ones that are here, fraying around the edges, and the ones I had hoped to plant … but did not.
It’s that time of year when you realize that what you have in the garden is what you get. The grand dreams of landscaping that were yours for the taking in the heady days of early spring seem silly now. There will be no clematis paniculata planted by the deck stairs, no zinnias by the mailbox. The weeds that once threatened are now welcomed because at least they are green.
But this is not to sound an entirely disappointed note. There are some gardening success stories this year. The transplanted ornamental grasses are thriving farther down in the yard, beside the fence. And the knockout rose I bought on impulse has made a promising start (even though it will have to be moved, thanks to one of those doing-better-than-expected ornamental grasses).
Still, it’s time to acknowledge that we’re moving out of the growing season, not into it. Acorns are falling fast and even a few yellow leaves have imprinted themselves on the black springy mat of the trampoline. In a month we will be entering meteorological autumn. Summer … is spent.
Humidity and dew points are meteorological variables that I’ve yet to fully understand. But I feel them and I see them and this time of the year that’s all that matters.
On after-dark walks with Copper I see dew glistening in the grass like so many diamond chips. Moisture lingers in the morning, so much so that the doggie comes back from his early constitutionals with tummy hair drenched by it.
As the day heats up all this moisture becomes a weight I try to move with fans and shifts of posture and anything else I can come up with. Sometimes I give in and move inside. But mostly, I just live with it in the outside office I persist in inhabiting. Because it’s summer, and it’s humid, and before long it won’t be either.
As we head toward the midpoint of August, the summer starts to feel a little frayed around the edges. The heat still shimmers on still afternoons, katydids still serenade us on sultry evenings. But the soul of summer, its freedom and looseness, is tightening up.
In a typical summer, you might see bright yellow school buses lumbering down the lanes, going on dry runs, striking fear in the hearts of children — and gladness and relief in their parents.
But this year, summer continues without this ominous marker. School will be virtual here so buses will remain parked in random lots around the region. It’s what we always dreamed of as kids, what we didn’t know enough to dread as parents.
It won’t be an endless summer. But right about now, it’s starting to feel like it might …
It’s easy to feel a failure at meditation, although I believe failure is a concept frowned upon in meditative circles. But despite the wandering mind I must constantly try to rein in during my brief sessions on Headspace, I stepped outside today to pick up the newspaper and felt a thrill just to be alive.
The sun was shining, I could walk barefoot to the street — the moment was perfect for celebrating the importance of all moments.
And as if to underline this view, as I write this post the hummingbird, elusive this year, seems finally to have decided our nectar is worth sipping. Already I’ve seen her make several passes at the feeder, dipping as well into the New Guinea impatiens, her needle-like bill stabbing the flowers with surgical precision.
A summer moment. A precious moment. Precious as all moments are.
Within this morning’s walk, rushing to work in a work-out before the heat begins to build, there was a sudden awareness of pause amidst the hurry. The feeling you get at the top of roller coaster, infinite and infinitesimal at the same time.
It was the feeling of summer at its peak, full of birdsong and cicada crescendo. Of crows, discussing the world and its problems as they often do, hopping along the gravel berm with their wise eyes and sleek black coats.
And for some reason this summer, what has become a signature sound, the felling of trees, the grinding up of deadwood. Are lawn services offering specials or something? Or are the trees, like so many of us, ready for a rest?
I’m not sure how much of my world view has been shaped by Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals — probably more than I would care to admit. Given that, perhaps I can be forgiven for hearing a certain refrain from “Carousel” pinging through my head these days.
“June is bustin’ out all over
All over the meadow and the hill
Buds are bustin’ outta bushes
And the romping river pushes
Every little wheel that wheels beside the mill
Because it’s June — June, June, June
Just because it’s June, June, June.
And my favorite verse:
June is bustin’ out all over
The sheep aren’t sheepish anymore
And the rams that chase the ewe sheep
Are determined there’ll be new sheep
And the ewe sheep aren’t even keeping score
Because it’s June — June, June, June
Just because it’s June, June, June!
All of which is to say … it’s a June-is-Bustin’-Out kind of day!
