The Heartbreak of High Summer
Summer is not over, summer is not over, summer is not over...
Hello friends, yes it’s been a while. Thought I’d check in. I’ve been struggling a bit with being overwhelmed with work and trying to maintain focus. The season of late summer is always a powerfully affecting one: so much sensual overload working in the garden (phlox! sunflowers! zinnias! weeds!), not to mention perusing the farmers’ market (peaches!!!), and the weather extremes this year are challenging to say the least.
Maintaining focus during three-week long heat waves is hard, but, writing this from green and leafy upstate New York, this difficulty pales in comparison to hearing about parts of the world where the heat and drought are actually destructive and life-threatening. We’ve done it to ourselves, and there seems no way out, but moving forward we clearly have to accept that the planet is changing and we will have to adapt.
There’s that thing everyone does where they declare the start of August to be the end of summer, despite there being nearly two more months of summer to go…why this cynical urge to shorten this most pleasing season? Do we merely yearn for a longer autumn? (I mean, I get that) Or do we feel we somehow don’t deserve these languid days, these late hours lit by golden sunset clouds? Do we all, even as adults, feel that “back to school” pull that means our freewheeling days will soon be curtailed?
I also find déjà-vu to be nearly-constant this time of year, catalyzed by fleeting sensory impressions: the smell of charcoal burning or meat being grilled, the perfume of petrichor after a sudden rain shower, the slant of light through the trees at around four o’clock, the sound of children laughing or shrieking as they chase each other, the morning birdsong in the background as I enjoy my afternoon coffee…I am transported to the summer streets of my childhood and the mischief I’d get up to with the neighborhood kids, or the cozy feeling of curling up with a book on the front porch with a cold glass of Kool-Aid (orange or Grape for me).
These brief bouts of (what? nostalgia? melancholy? joy?) anchor me, fleetingly, in the moment, and for that I am grateful. I feel the shift. Summer’s long days begin to shorten, the nights get cooler, the many vibrant greens in the hillsides covered with trees, seen from a distance when I’m driving or walking, begin to look paler, dustier somehow, as if they’re tired, as if they know what’s coming. They’re a signal of the coming dark and cold that always arrives sooner than we can believe. They seem to whisper:
“time is precious”
“the day is ending”
“you have so much to do”
Too many writing projects? Yes, but they’re all important to me. And they’re coming along. The good thing is, I am finally at the stage with The Witching Hour: How Witches Enchanted the World (a working title) where I can send out a proposal to agents and editors.
Wish me luck! And let me know what’s happening with you. More soon, I promise.