The End of Augusting

Unfiltered sunset

Here it is the tail end of August, the final few weeks of summer lie ahead. It catches me by surprise every year how quickly summer slips away. The first school bus rolls down the street and wham it is September. The chorus of crickets at night reach their crescendo and start to taper off. The woods take on that different smell that foretells the approach of fall.

There is a wistfulness that comes with this change of seasons that seems specific. Perhaps that is why fall explodes in so much glorious color, to soothe us over the loss of summer.

Rounding out the week

Mixed media piece with circles, music and damask

It is Friday, that is not the surprise, that it is the first Friday in August is. The summer is sliding by at an alarming rate, perhaps because on the ongoing issues with Covid, or due to my extra work hours, or even because I have been busy in general. Whatever the reason we, will want to savor these days and late evenings. I am trying to squeeze in so much this summer, day trips, hikes, DIY fixes, home improvement, website, classes, art, regular work, and so on. This has had the opposite effect of what I hoped, instead of feeling a fun filled sense of summer it has felt more like a constant choice between must do and want to do. I have plenty of time, just too much to fit in it!

Last licks

I realized a couple days ago that we never went for soft serve this whole summer. We only got out for hard ice cream one time. Which makes me wonder if summer ever was, as we also didn’t play horse shoes, go to the beach or go to any cookouts. This year has been so very strange hasn’t it? If I look back to 3/13, the last day of what most of us consider the normal times, the year feels like one odd incident after another. At my job we had been preparing for some sort of Covid-19 effect back in February as a just in case. And we still got blindsided by the shutdown, the speed at which things went off the rails. Open one day, closed the next, and next and next for many weeks. And now, here it is the cusp of autumn, and still things are on wobbly footing for so many. Schools, jobs, life events, all are caught in some in between place. But I think this weekend we will go get soft serve and enjoy a last taste of summer.

City heat

The summer heat is upon us. And now that we are in a city it feels even hotter. It is sapping my box unpacking, not to mention lawn mowing, energy. We are slowly settling in and working out how the space will function. Just not this weekend, this is a fan on -old movie watching type of weekend, with cool drinks at hand.

Bursting into July

The month has turned, the holiday has passed and to gauge the stock in many stores summer is already over. Merchandise is marked down as if we are days away from the first frost. I understand stores don’t want too much leftover stock, but it seems a bit premature to think of fall. Yet there we have it, the rush for the next season’s dollars while still in the current one. I plan to make this summer one to linger in as long as possible.

Summerfest-ing

Summer is underway and I am ready for it not to fly by. It feels impossible that we are closing in on July already. Looking down the river yesterday before work made it feel as if time had slowed to a languidly flowing current. The air was fresh and clean, the breeze soft and the sun warm on my back. It was a summerfest kind of day.