It’s that time of summer when you notice the days getting shorter. You chase the light you feel slipping away. As though if you hold it, if you go out and appreciate the warmth of the sun on your skin, it might decide to stay.
Every doing feels better when done in the daylight. Even in a combination of heat and humidity that might steal your breath, there is some sweet pleasure to be found in its flagrance. There is some freedom in the dance done outdoors, well past hours considered decent.
The light tricks us into believing we are young again. We laugh with and hold each other and for once there is no rush to curl up inside our homes. Content to do nothing more than perch ourselves atop a porch or patio, this nothing seems sufficient.
We mourn summer even as we welcome autumn. The grieving begins before summer leaves. Because we know by the time we give proper attention to the changing seasons, it will have left. A few minutes here, a streetlight flicks on there. You look at the clock and remember when it did not become late so early.
I remember how the sun lifted me from bed and sat me in front of a day I wasn’t sure I could face. How summer makes one wish to rise despite the ache, is some merciful magic.
Somehow the sunshine soothes winter’s wounds. Pain grows less consistent, or less obvious…
