Last Lasting Days of Summer
The summer is nearing its end, but you wouldn't know if by looking out the window, or stepping outside. August is traditionally the hottest month around here, the 'dog days of August', and this month is no exception. I've been thankful for a few low-90s days here lately, as we've been in the upper 90s with humidity to match for a few weeks now. While students are awaiting the beginning of the new school year, a true mark of the end of summer, I am free to enjoy the season to its true end - the last of the days of fanning as the days of crossed arms and chills creep into view. The last of long evenings when the sun doesn't truly set until nearly 8 and it's still light out until after 9. In the past these beautiful waning days of summer went unnoticed, my nose already weeks into a book or a paper or notes, oblivious to passing time, subtle changes. By the time I noticed the summer had ended it was truly over, not to return until I peered up from my books again the following May.
Now, however, I can appreciate the subtleties of the season. I sit inside the front screen door and watch the afternoon showers enliven the grass, each blade reaching up to receive the nourishment it craves. I watch from the back door as the sun dips behind the trees, shattering the darkness of the wood as each tree, each branch, each leaf glows a vibrant red for a few minutes before the sun falls from view. David and I call the back woods a fairyland: the light glows and shimmers and dances in the evening, and in the early summer the trees are so full with fireflies you'd think the stars had fallen from the sky and nestled themselves in our treetops. I long for a back and front porch so I can be closer to the beauty, to the foxes that creep across the yard, barely making a sound, the deer that come in as a family to dig through our compost, to see what goodies we've inadvertently left them from the night before. Not all the wonders are furry and cute - though I think they're all beautiful. We've recently befriended a Rider Spider, large as the palm of my hand and yellow and black striped who has built a web near our steps. I've watched her abdomen grow over the last few months and I believe she might be laying eggs soon. She doesn't seem to mind us, and we greet her everyday as we enter and leave the house. There are four others on the back of the house, but we've grown attached to this one and named her Frieda. There's also a small lizard that seems to live on our side steps. I've spent an inordinate amount of time watching him - we've named him Blizz, primarily because of the icy color of his tail. There are bats and frogs and bees and grasshoppers and squirrels and snakes and mice and raccoons in numbers to great to name, but we've been blessed to witness the beauty of each of them. A quiet afternoon spent in my yard and you'd understand why we deem it a fairyland.
We're going to the beach with our good friends Stephen and LK in less than two weeks, our first time this year. We've spent time with them nearly every weekend for the past month. It's been a joy to get to know and befriend another girl, and to see how much she and Stephen enjoy one another. Two of my dearest female friends have moved away, and many of the others, like me, are often too busy. I love LK to death and am so glad to have this new friend in my life. I'm very much looking forward to our beach trip, the stop by Hard Rock Park (my first amusement park, other than Disney, in memory), and just spending time with my amazing husband and our awesome friends.
The bounty of food at the co-op late in the summer is breathtaking, and we are hard pressed each week not to overstep our limit as we fill up on okra as long as my forearm, peppers and tomatoes of every variety, so plump and juicy and vibrant in color, potatoes in red, white and blue, sweet corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, snap peas, deep purple and pale white eggplant, spices and herbs intoxicatingly fragrant. We've been working at the co-op, too. This past Saturday we spent nearly two hours picking tomatoes, mostly pear tomatoes, so small and sweet you can pop them in your mouth (and we did, just a few).
There is an incredible sense of community, of involvement, of efficacy that comes from being directly involved in growing and gathering the food that nourishes you and your family. To see the plant from seed to bud to fruitation - to wipe the dirt from it, rinse it and prepare it and place it on the table, knowing just where it came from, knowing that it's local and organic and fresh. It's an experience so far and removed from the supermarket that there's just no comparison. I can't imagine ever going back to purchasing GM food shipped from across the world, paid for with the sweat and toil of underpaid laborers, sprayed with pesticides and preservatives, days or weeks old, void of any real flavor. Try a tomato picked fresh from the vine, one you only have to wipe the dirt from to eat it because it's been sprayed with nothing but water - you'll never see tomatoes the same again.
I'm soaking in these last days of summer, turning my face to the sky and appreciating the warmth beating down on my skin. Rather than curse the heat, I will try to appreciate it, as I know I will be wishing for it in 4-5 months when the winter chill rolls back in. As summer gives way to autumn, pause and take it all in. Capture the moment like a time capsule in your mind, to draw back on when the gray days take hold. I realize that these are the moments, the very moments that I will look back at and remember as the easiest, happiest, most peaceful moments of my life. I relish it, I savor it like a fine wine resting on my tongue, I breath it in as a fresh ocean breeze. I am blessed. Enjoy these lasting days of summer everyone, and take a moment to take it in.
Now, however, I can appreciate the subtleties of the season. I sit inside the front screen door and watch the afternoon showers enliven the grass, each blade reaching up to receive the nourishment it craves. I watch from the back door as the sun dips behind the trees, shattering the darkness of the wood as each tree, each branch, each leaf glows a vibrant red for a few minutes before the sun falls from view. David and I call the back woods a fairyland: the light glows and shimmers and dances in the evening, and in the early summer the trees are so full with fireflies you'd think the stars had fallen from the sky and nestled themselves in our treetops. I long for a back and front porch so I can be closer to the beauty, to the foxes that creep across the yard, barely making a sound, the deer that come in as a family to dig through our compost, to see what goodies we've inadvertently left them from the night before. Not all the wonders are furry and cute - though I think they're all beautiful. We've recently befriended a Rider Spider, large as the palm of my hand and yellow and black striped who has built a web near our steps. I've watched her abdomen grow over the last few months and I believe she might be laying eggs soon. She doesn't seem to mind us, and we greet her everyday as we enter and leave the house. There are four others on the back of the house, but we've grown attached to this one and named her Frieda. There's also a small lizard that seems to live on our side steps. I've spent an inordinate amount of time watching him - we've named him Blizz, primarily because of the icy color of his tail. There are bats and frogs and bees and grasshoppers and squirrels and snakes and mice and raccoons in numbers to great to name, but we've been blessed to witness the beauty of each of them. A quiet afternoon spent in my yard and you'd understand why we deem it a fairyland.
We're going to the beach with our good friends Stephen and LK in less than two weeks, our first time this year. We've spent time with them nearly every weekend for the past month. It's been a joy to get to know and befriend another girl, and to see how much she and Stephen enjoy one another. Two of my dearest female friends have moved away, and many of the others, like me, are often too busy. I love LK to death and am so glad to have this new friend in my life. I'm very much looking forward to our beach trip, the stop by Hard Rock Park (my first amusement park, other than Disney, in memory), and just spending time with my amazing husband and our awesome friends.
The bounty of food at the co-op late in the summer is breathtaking, and we are hard pressed each week not to overstep our limit as we fill up on okra as long as my forearm, peppers and tomatoes of every variety, so plump and juicy and vibrant in color, potatoes in red, white and blue, sweet corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, snap peas, deep purple and pale white eggplant, spices and herbs intoxicatingly fragrant. We've been working at the co-op, too. This past Saturday we spent nearly two hours picking tomatoes, mostly pear tomatoes, so small and sweet you can pop them in your mouth (and we did, just a few).
There is an incredible sense of community, of involvement, of efficacy that comes from being directly involved in growing and gathering the food that nourishes you and your family. To see the plant from seed to bud to fruitation - to wipe the dirt from it, rinse it and prepare it and place it on the table, knowing just where it came from, knowing that it's local and organic and fresh. It's an experience so far and removed from the supermarket that there's just no comparison. I can't imagine ever going back to purchasing GM food shipped from across the world, paid for with the sweat and toil of underpaid laborers, sprayed with pesticides and preservatives, days or weeks old, void of any real flavor. Try a tomato picked fresh from the vine, one you only have to wipe the dirt from to eat it because it's been sprayed with nothing but water - you'll never see tomatoes the same again.
I'm soaking in these last days of summer, turning my face to the sky and appreciating the warmth beating down on my skin. Rather than curse the heat, I will try to appreciate it, as I know I will be wishing for it in 4-5 months when the winter chill rolls back in. As summer gives way to autumn, pause and take it all in. Capture the moment like a time capsule in your mind, to draw back on when the gray days take hold. I realize that these are the moments, the very moments that I will look back at and remember as the easiest, happiest, most peaceful moments of my life. I relish it, I savor it like a fine wine resting on my tongue, I breath it in as a fresh ocean breeze. I am blessed. Enjoy these lasting days of summer everyone, and take a moment to take it in.