What I love most about summer is that it ends. Name an aspect of summer and I assure you, I despise it. Heat? Gross. Bright blue skies? Physically painful. Barbecues? Not my style. Tank tops and summer dresses and sandals? Without my sweaters and boots, I am nothing.
I live in a terrible place to hate summer. I live in a swamp so far down south that here, we consider parts of Florida "up north." At least once a day, every day, between June and September I grumble about something inflicted upon me by summer in the south. I curse at the headaches I get when I forget my sunglasses and the mid-day sun blinds me. I scratch at mosquito bites wishing for death. I leave my house in the evenings because cicadas have decided to make their home in a tree branch a yard away from my living room couch. Their shrieks can reach 120 decibels. That's beyond the human pain threshold. I won't even get started on the sweat. If not for air conditioning, I would've moved to Nova Scotia long ago.
I hate summer. Most of summer. Because come September, summer quietly, nearly imperceptibly becomes fall. During a muggy night full of cicada song, a cool breeze will blow. On a hot, bright day, I'll spot a yellow leaf in a deep green tree. On the way to a Labor Day barbecue, I'll stop off at Starbucks and find that Pumpkin Spice Lattes have returned.
Fall is, without hyperbole, my favorite thing about life on earth. My image of a perfect day involves fog and chill and pumpkins and piles of yellow leaves on the ground. It involves snuggling up with blankets and coffee and bundling up in wooly sweaters and thick socks and listening to crows cawing from the branches of trees.
I suffer through summer, but it's the harbinger of a season that fills me with joy.
There's no line between the seasons. Just because the calendar says that summer ends September 21st doesn't mean the weather, the cicadas, or mosquitoes will necessarily agree. There's only a gradual transition, imperceptible on a day-to-day basis. There are good days, bad days, and days that are something in-between, and it isn’t always easy to know what tomorrow will bring.
But I can survive the sweat and mosquitoes sun-induced headaches if there is as much as a suggestion of fall in the air. I can enjoy a muggy night if the wind is whispering to me that the muggy nights are numbered. I can even enjoy an entire summer day if I spot a few orange leaves curled up on the ground under a tree.
This summer has been particularly rough. For most of us, I’m sure. It's been filled with bad days that have had nothing to do with the heat.
A few days ago, however, I spotted summer items in clearance bins and pumpkin-flavored candles taking their place on shelves. I was reminded that even this summer will be replaced by fall.
It's late August. Those breezes are still a good month away. But I know they're coming. And sometimes that's enough.