I can’t help but feel a little sad as the day length shortens, weather begins to cool, and Minnesotans begin their fall rituals and routines. It has been a beautiful open window weather week and I have enjoyed the fresh air and breezes blowing through the house. Soon, as the days cool, I will need to close the windows at night.
Summer’s End
The Minnesota State Fair, which ends on Labor Day, marks the end of summer in my mind. Some schools have started their school year already and the rest will begin the day after Labor Day. Friends are moving their kids into dorms at college and the first leaves have begun turning fall colors.
Quote of the day: “The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
I watch the back-to-school and off-to-college preparations with a mixture of nostalgia and relief. It’s fun to hear of my grandkids’ adventures in school with the oldest now in second grade and youngest in kindergarten.
While some of the summer flowers remain bright and vibrant, others are beginning to look tattered and torn. The trees and foliage are still wonderfully green because of the plentiful rain earlier in the summer as well as recent rains.
Gorgeous greens at my friend’s house last evening
I planted my fall crop of lettuce and the seeds that the chipmunk didn’t find have leaves about 1/2 inch high. I am waiting for my red raspberries to ripen. The plants are loaded with berries!
Ruby throated hummingbird
The female ruby throated hummingbird is still coming to my flowers and hummingbird feeder multiple times a day. I often stand at the kitchen window and gaze at her while she checks each flower for nectar and then heads up to the feeder for more food. Her visits have become more frequent this week, while I haven’t seen the male ruby throated hummingbird for 2 weeks or more. It makes me curious to learn more about these tiny birds. I’m wondering when they will migrate south, how many babies they raised this year, and if the young babies have left the nest yet. I also wonder how much nectar flowers produce? Since she visits the same flowers multiple times each day, I can’t help wondering if the flowers continue to produce nectar or if she is “just checking” to make sure she’s harvested all the nectar.
Sunset at Medicine Lake
Sunsets are earlier, sunrises later, making it much easier for me to seek out the beautiful light at both ends of the day for photography, but I miss the long days of summer already.
What would it be like to live in endless summer?
Would I appreciate our summers so much if we lived in endless summer like warmer parts of the world?
Probably not.
I love the turn of the seasons where I live, the new life in springtime, lush greens of summer, vivid colors of fall, and beautiful snowfalls of winter.
But I still feel a little sad at the end of summer.
I wish summer was longer and I know that all is perfection just as it is. Holding this paradox lightly, I head to my daily meditation.
I sit on my meditation cushion and watch this desire for summer to never end. Breathing in, breathing out. No judgment, no need to change anything, just watching and breathing.
Life is full of change. This moment is the only moment there is.
Seasons turn and a new summer will arrive. Each moment is beautiful and perfect.
May you walk in beauty
Watching the Carousel at Como Park
Beautiful water lily “garden” outside Como Conservatory
Water Lily at Como Conservatory
Closeup of water lilies
Another Medicine Lake sunset
Sailing into the sunset
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