The summer is over. Finito. Nada. No more. I realized this new reality today on my bumper to bumper commute from Gladwyne to Center City. It was just a few days ago when we were riding vintage schwinns down lazy beach roads, waking at sunrise to walk through scrubby dunes to quiet beaches. Taking deep breathes, sitting long enough to actually read while slowly sipping lattes in Avalon whose own name means “blissful otherworld.” A piercing alarm has shook us from our summer dream state, thrust us full tilt back into the fire, the rat race. Laughing carefree children are crying anxiously about bus stops and new teachers. Once patient mothers are now hurried and curt. Clients who have not called for weeks are calling. Through the screeching brakes, sirens, and diesel trucks all I can think of is the world we lost on our “labor day”. The blue moon, the boys of summer, summer lovin’, summer skin, endless summer, where did it all go? Why does it have to go?
By the time I am parking my car and entering my office, I have come to terms with summer’s demise. It must end, die, burn out as the last sunset over the bay. A brief escape, a holiday weekend from our self imposed schedules, timetables, appointments. It is a special moment that becomes a distant memory the instant we wake on the first Tuesday in September.
Fear not, it will return as it does every year at exactly the right time.
