The Summer That Was
For some reason, I'm finding the change of season this year to be harder than usual. I'm really not sure why. I love autumn, even though I'm not technically on a school calendar and so have no real reason to buy notebooks and colored pencils (though I do anyway).
I have a little end-of-summer ennui most years, but it dissipates as I recognize yet again that I never have to leave here. Forty-odd years of leaving what always felt like home to "go home" to a version of life that felt temporary apparently created a lingering unconscious sense of impending doom. But I know better: Yes, I don't have to leave here this year, either. Still, that "oh no, not yet" feeling lingers.
Previously, I mentioned end-of-summer projects, both writing and other, and finding new goals. I've done a bunch of all of it. Of course, there's never enough time for all the summer projects, but we have managed some, in spite of too cold and wet, too hot and muggy, raining raining raining. Indoors and out, I can see both things that are different and things we never got around to fixing/finishing/changing.
And I know, ready or not, the seasons are changing. The heater has come on overnight a few times already. September has brought everyone's attention to the activities and meetings that they abandon during the summer. I'm actually quite excited by and absorbed in what I'm creating now. I'm mostly looking ahead. Except that I can't quite stop looking back.
So today I figured out something to help: Closing Time--not Leonard Cohen (though I'm a fan of this song), but instead, the Semisonic version. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Yeah. That. It helps.
I have a little end-of-summer ennui most years, but it dissipates as I recognize yet again that I never have to leave here. Forty-odd years of leaving what always felt like home to "go home" to a version of life that felt temporary apparently created a lingering unconscious sense of impending doom. But I know better: Yes, I don't have to leave here this year, either. Still, that "oh no, not yet" feeling lingers.
Previously, I mentioned end-of-summer projects, both writing and other, and finding new goals. I've done a bunch of all of it. Of course, there's never enough time for all the summer projects, but we have managed some, in spite of too cold and wet, too hot and muggy, raining raining raining. Indoors and out, I can see both things that are different and things we never got around to fixing/finishing/changing.
And I know, ready or not, the seasons are changing. The heater has come on overnight a few times already. September has brought everyone's attention to the activities and meetings that they abandon during the summer. I'm actually quite excited by and absorbed in what I'm creating now. I'm mostly looking ahead. Except that I can't quite stop looking back.
So today I figured out something to help: Closing Time--not Leonard Cohen (though I'm a fan of this song), but instead, the Semisonic version. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Yeah. That. It helps.