blue girl: Turn, Turn, Turn

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While I'm sure there are going to be a more days where the temperature reaches into the 80s, they are going to be few and far between. And thank goodness for that. We've had a real summer this year, with sunshine and everything. I don't remember having a summer like this in years. As a matter of fact, I don't remember one at all. I can count on one hand the rainy days we had this summer.

Lance, recently witnessing fall's early arrival one hot summer day wrote:

Leaves on some of the poplars and cottonwoods around here are beginning to turn.

Day lilies have stopped blooming. Goldenrod is out. New England Asters. Roadsides have been blue and white with chickory and Queen Anne's Lace for a while...Canada geese are moving around. Small squads noisily going nowhere as younger birds learn how the whole migration thing works. By now their feathers have grown back after their midsummer molt and they're feeling their oats...All these are signs to me that summer is over...

My son started 8th grade yesterday and while that should make me feel like it's fall, it doesn't this year for some reason. To me, kids are starting school at the end of summer, not the beginning of fall anymore. It's a common gripe, but I don't understand why they can't start after Labor Day like we used to. Must be the conservative side of me coming out. I've never agreed breaking with that tradition.

A fall ritual that I've always enjoyed, but is now an end of the summer ritual, is going out to buy school supplies. There is nothing like a big box of brand new crayons to make you feel like a kid again. Obviously an 8th grader doesn't need crayons, but I bought a big box of 'em anyway. I figure I'll just keep 'em here for when my two young nieces come to visit.

I knew fall was on its way when I received an L.L. Bean email a few weeks back. I get them all year round, but for some reason L.L. Bean represents the fall season more than any other. Sweater weather has always been my favorite. But, the term *sweater weather* does not extend in to winter. I hate wearing sweaters under coats. Too bulky.

In anticipation of sweater weather I start daydreaming about Sunday afternoon rides to the local farm to buy mums. And pumpkins and gourds. You know those crazy looking ones? I love those. And every fall I buy way too many.

When I feel like fall is coming I allow myself to completely ignore my flowers. And it's not like I don't ignore them all summer long anyway, it's just that by this time of year I allow myself not to feel so guilty about it. I like the idea of a beautiful flower garden. The work it takes to maintain one? Um, not so much. Afterall, flower pots that are a little wilty and turning weird colors from lack of water, somehow still look pretty when I surround them with pumpkins and mums.

Pretty soon we'll start receiving our invitations to friend's clam bakes, our neighborhood will have its annual super duper fall garage sale extravaganza and too many moms will start conversations about how Christmas is right around the corner and it'll be here before we know it.

In the fall I don't like to look ahead. I live most in the moment during the shortest season of all.

My first want of fall this summer came when I read Anne Lamott's book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, back at the end of July. I folded the corner of the page down so that I could go back to it easily in order to share it with all of you:

Everyone seemed glad summer was over. Spring is sweet, the baby season; summer is the teenage season -- too much energy, too much growth and beauty and heat and late nights, none of them what they are cracked up to be. Fall is the older season, a more seasoned season. The weather surrounds you instead of beating down on you. Clouds bobble across the sky, and there are fresh winds, and misty salmon sunrises, and then cool blue skies. The weather is lighter, marbled, and it makes you feel like striding again, makes you glad that so much works at all.

So I'm really happy fall's almost here. And I look forward to the trees changing, matching all the colors in a big box of brand new crayons.

Comments

The lack of seasons is one of the few physical drawbacks to living in the tropics. I haven't lived anywhere where there was a recognizable "fall" since 1974, but I still miss that crispness in the air. Since I once bought something from LL Bean, I still get the occasional catalog from them, and that adds to the nostalgia.

Posted by: Linkmeister | August 25, 2005 at 01:50 PM

I want endless summers! But we had a great one too and crisp fall days have a wonderful charm. But summer flies by.

Posted by: Bob | August 26, 2005 at 12:51 AM

I miss the sort of fall you describe living here in Atlanta. We do get 4 seasons, but blink and you will miss Spring and Fall.

The summer down here is hot.

Winter here is the oddest. It can get down into the teens, but you don't get those long cold snaps that last 3 weeks at a time, and you get a lot of nice days mixed in between the cold days. A lot of the time it is 40's during the day and 30's at night.

But Fall? Fall is the best in the North. Here it seems to last about a day...

Posted by: The Viscount LaCarte | August 26, 2005 at 05:50 AM

Hi Al, I'm sorry you don't get to experience fall longer than a day -- but, I have to say your description of winter is awesome.

Summer up here this year was just like what I would think it was down there...too, too much for me.

Posted by: blue girl | August 26, 2005 at 10:23 AM