The evening air is different now. It does not yet have the crispness of fall, the chill that evokes sweaters and pumpkin-spiced lattes, but you can feel that the crispness is coming. It’s more of a mildness right now, the dense humidity and the high heat having finally collapsed under their own weight.
The local geese are gathering before their long flight; similarly, the cranes are congregating (and croaking at each other all day). The frogs have retreated from the driveway and the sidewalk back to the marsh, to do whatever they do in the colder seasons. I only brought my bicycle out from the basement a couple of weeks ago, and now it feels like time to think about putting it back.
The transition from summer to autumn will have less definition this year; the high temperatures of summer have already killed off many of the leaves that would have waited until next month to change their colors and drop. Even the recently planted young trees have already lost some leaves due to the excessive heat in their youth. Have they received enough rain to help them stretch and anchor their roots, enough to survive whatever kind of winter lies ahead? We’ll know for sure in April or May if they had what it took to persist.
We’ve endured so many events this summer that have strained us to the point of despair. Floods and hurricanes. Power failures and grid failures. COVID surges. The fall of Afghanistan. School-board meetings with battle lines drawn over the use of cloth masks to stem the spread of a deadly disease. Deaths and the commemoration of deaths. Final endings, and long separations with no end in sight.
There have also been new things, happy things. New friends and co-workers, and friends re-met after long absences. A new school year, with new kindergarteners, new middle schoolers, new high schoolers, new college freshmen first-year students, new graduates, and new teachers. Summer weddings! New babies and babies-to-come. New bar and bat mitzvahs taking on new roles in the new year. New recipes to try — and old recipes to use again, now that it feels like time to cook and bake again.
Between the highs and the lows live those things that never change: laundry, dishes, sleep schedules and the management thereof, work, commuting, parenting, grocery shopping, and the walking of the dog.
Well, I suppose that parenting changes. My kidlets are now ages 15 to 22, and their needs are different. Eldest needs direction and support, Secondborn needs space, MiddleSon needs an audience, and Youngest needs as many hugs as he gives (plus a ride home from soccer practice). And the dog, who thinks I am his mama, needs his mama. And, apparently, needs to follow her around the house every time she gets up. Dog is getting older and I’m starting to wonder if there is such a thing as canine dementia; Montmorency Jerome has never possessed the swiftest mind but a few days ago he went into a barking fit because there was a truck on the road. A truck. On the road. The audacity!
Anyway, we’re all looking forward to the trappings of fall that we can just begin to perceive on the far horizon. Summer, we bore you heavily on our shoulders and will be glad to set you down. Autumn? If you can wait a bit before we take you up that would be best. Let us pause, breathe, and make ourselves ready.
Chocolate Sheep 