As I was walking home today, it struck me that, in Seattle, Summer is ending. No one really wants it to end, even I, a firm Autumn, am mourning the end of summer. It's inevitable. Seasons change when we don't want them to and refuse to change when we do want them to. But when we just move from one day to the next the change seems so sudden because you haven't been paying attention. I think an awareness of the word and it's weather around me are a result of being homeschooled and raised in a family where life is taken a little slower. We take time to dig in the good dark earth, to feel the gritty grains under our fingers and let the brown stain our skin till we can see the ridges of our fingerprints. We play with the earthworms and tenderly transfer new bulbs to safer growing places. I think with an upbringing such as this one may never loose sight of what is happening in the changing of the seasons.
So I walk home feeling the sun on my face, almost too warm but I didn't want to care because it felt so good, and the wind telling me that colder weather is coming. I can smell a barbecue somewhere and the scent reminds me of the beginning of summer when you could smell some of the first barbecues. I can smell the heat evaporating the water on a lawn as I pass it, a lawn mower in the distance putters for some of the last times until the spring. Thinking ahead I realize I'm starting school in a month, I've got a paid theatre gig coming up, and I can't wait for it all to get here. However such emotion is tempered with savoring the last few moments of summer. Soak up the last bits of good sun (but please don't get burnt! :), drink some of the last lemonades, lick your popsicles, and play in running water until it's too cold. Then snuggle up in a warm sweater and grab a cup of something hot and enjoy the cooler months knowing it will all come again. Soon.