It’s been a hot summer. We don’t have air conditioning, and the temperature inside our house rose above 90 degrees many times. The humidity made it uncomfortable at times, but I have to admit, I’ve enjoyed a summer that felt like summer. I haven’t worn a pair of jeans in months. I’ve worn the same outfit every day, a thin t-shirt and a pair of worn-out denim shorts. I’ve gone swimming in lakes, ponds, rivers, and creeks. Summer heat has the effect of slowing time down, so that this summer has felt like the summers of my childhood.
But this weekend at camp, the weather suddenly changed. A cool wind came across the river. I find myself digging out the red fleece that’s been buried in my duffle bag all summer. My mother and I went out canoeing, and we noticed that the lily pads were dry and withered, many of them brown. The light had changed: darkness came earlier. Acorns were already beginning to fall from the oak trees. It’s as if someone turned a switch and said, “Let it be fall.”
8 comments:
May it be so.
It's so funny how that happens, isn't it?
We're much further south, so our day like that usually isn't until late September. Still, it's beautiful.
Much too early for fall as far as I'm concerned.
Growing up in southern California, the onset of fall is mostly noticed by a sun that isn't quite as bright, and which sets earlier. Eventually the air dries out and comes from the north -- the dreaded Santa Ana winds that fan the flames of brush fires each fall. But it's still too early for that. August and even September can be our hottest months. Oh, and eventually, it will rain, something it doesn't do in summer here.
Now I'm gonna have to go home this evening and get out my Joni.
;-)
Danny - yes. Plus there's that sort of change in the feel of the air, that just comes one day and makes one think "This feels like fall."
It's hard to describe to people who haven't lived there.
That's been happening here, too, on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Our temperatures have been in the 70s with cloudy skies, where usually we'd be pushing 100 degrees and baking under sweltering suns this time of year.
I think another bad (by which I mean wonderful) winter is coming.
Living where I do, it is impossible to imagine homes without air conditioning! My jaw drops every time someone mentions it.
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