September
7, 2014 – Where Have All the Summers Gone
I've
started to hear people say things about how glad they are that fall is nearly
here. They've begun talking about pumpkin spice lattes and Halloween
decorations while I wonder where my summer went. I've lost the sense of the
seasons. This has been a problem for me this whole year. For once, winter was
too short. Spring I handled begrudgingly, sloshing through the melting snow of
the Wyoming wilderness and cursing the rising temperatures. But then I blinked
and spring was gone. When summer rolled in, wasting no time, I had no specific
goal for it except to avoid the Texas cocktail of heat and humidity.
With
that in mind, I went northwest. I spent a month of summer in Oregon, watched
fireworks from the top of a hill on the Fourth of July, cooled my feet in the river,
grilled zucchini and mushrooms on an open fire, drank blended icy lemonade on
the back porch with sweat beading designs along the contours of my face. All
those were summery things to do. But in retrospect they feel like brief moments
from some past life, some past summer long ago.
Maybe
this is because I got lost in the time between library visits. I got so wrapped
up in reading about history that the future too quickly became the present then
the past. All too soon, I returned my stack of library books and bid goodbye to
Oregon.
By
invitation I gypsyed on to Tennessee. I braced myself for the inevitable heat,
humidity, and mosquitoes that come with Southern living. It wouldn't be Texas, not
nearly so hot, but I prepared myself for the worst. I was pleasantly surprised.
Summer in Nashville has been the pianissimo to forte fortissimo crescendo of
the cicada song, the background hum of crickets. Thunderstorms and dark-edged
clouds. Soft breezes that shift the humidity into ghostly, nearly tangible
forms. Dragonflies hovering over fresh cut grass. Mornings spent on the front
porch steps with the kitty for company. More books read. Day passing into new
day.
Summer
has vanished as I’ve come to grips with my year-long existential crisis and
become slowly reacquainted with hope. Hope for all kinds of things. Leonard
Bird in Folding Paper Cranes said, “Hope
is everything. …hope is a process, albeit
not always a logical one. Hope is integral to the psyche.”
And
maybe the psyche is integral to this fragile, beautiful thing called life.
Maybe it's even simpler than that. Maybe it's as simple as the phrase I picked
up from my dad in which he says, “Where there's life, there's hope.” It’s just
a matter of recognizing it.
Maybe
it’s as simple as knowing that this summer might be well gone, but there will
be another one. And another one after that. Summer is vanishing, there will be pumpkin spice lattes and the
observance of Halloween, and I’m okay with that. Fall has its charm. Summer may
disappear, the seasons will change, and I'm already looking ahead for winter to
come.
