Summer’s End

You can see it coming.  The little leaves are starting to turn.  The gardens are exploding with late season produce.  Kids are getting ready to go back to school.  But more than seeing it, you can feel it.  Not in the middle of the day.  Too much going on and the sun is still too high.  No, it's in the quiet of the morning where you can feel it's just a little cooler in the morning.  It takes the heat of the day just that little bit longer to get going.  Summer is hanging on by his fingernails.  It's maybe the one season where most humans join in and resist the shift in seasons but it won't last.  Even if it remains hot into September, Labor Day performs the coup de grace on that "summer mentality."  The summer state of mind ends and we're back to suburban fall…hustle and bustle, no time for anyone.  

I'm not looking forward to it.  Yes, it's just a couple of weeks away but I admit to holding on to every summer day right about now.  I get up early, open the window in my office and dare the bugs to come in the house.  I put on a little Foo Fighters and either read or write until it is time to go to work.  After work, I cycle and come home.  If its nice, we'll hang out in the back yard.  As ridiculous as it sounds we'll light a fire in the fire pit.  Yes, even if it's like 85 degrees.  It's great.  

The end of this summer also seems to have brought on an explosion of "stuff" in my bike room.  The stuff that is necessary to setup a dorm room.  To my untrained eye, the pile looks pretty big.  My daughter assures me it isn't that large.  It also doesn't appear to include any clothes as of yet.  That's ominous and I forsee some hard choices being made.  After all, we aren't taking the Expedition.  It's been a trooper but it is 14 years old and I don' think a drive to Roanoke ends well.  No, we're taking the smaller crossover.  That has a somewhat reduced capacity.  I worry that we're going to end up in a pack whatever you can and ship the rest situation.  Either way, this too shall pass.

I guess we're, what?  Two weeks away from taking her to school?  In the quiet of the mornings, as summer fades, I admit to being somewhat melancholy at the prospect.  Hanging with young people is so much fun.  Energy.  Creatviity.  It's not as though I wish her to stay or am troubled by the prospect of her being on her own.  I think her a capable woman.  It's just the change I guess.  Since she was born and put on a schedule, we've handled things around here the same way for 18 years.  That's a long time and that's really the crux of the matter: it isn't just a big change for her, it's a big change for Sarah and I.  People always joke when they're talking to soon-to-be empty nesters; "so, you're going to rip your clothes off and run around the house?"  I always smile and nod but wonder why the hell someone would ask that?  Tempted to hit them with "well, I feel like my biological imperative is fulfulled so I'm considering walking out into a blizzard like an eldery eskimo, what do you think?"  🙂

Maybe it's just a confluence of events but I'm a bit reserved these days.  I…hmmm, well, we?  Yes, WE.  We lost a boyhood friend in Allan Guy this week.  Allan was among the most decent humans I ever knew.  We didn't spend a lot of time together in later years but whenever we did chat it really didn't require much preamble and we just got along.  I feel bad for my cousin Chris who was better friends with Allan and had the misfortune of finding Allan.  That's rough.  That, combined with the other big change, have conspired to put me in a reflective mood the past few days.  I worry about things that maybe don't deserve the attention.  I'm not normally one who worries all that much about what's done: action first and sort out the details later….but I dwell.  Have I wasted a lot of my life?  Should I have been involved in politics?  I invested so much heart and my very soul in my Council time but at the end it felt pretty empty.  It felt like politics – in the pejorative sense – and not problem solving.  Was that a waste of time?  I dunno.  About all I'm sure of is that what's most important in life are people.  I really don't know what comes next for empty nesters.  I expect you get up and go to work the next day and stop wondering about it.  However, I do know that people will be more important to me going forward than they've ever been.  Whatever else happens, I won't regret that…..