Counting Down the Days

August 2: A Peach Season

 Time for another update on the weather.

It is still just as hot as July, but the nights are starting to take on a crisper tone. The sun still sets late, but the tint is more golden: forever 4 o'clock days at 4 o'clock in the year. The birds are growing more mature, and the crickets and cicadas are only getting louder.

The phlox are out in full force, a last reign of magenta before the reds and browns begin to set in.

The Queen Anne's lace is beginning to come out, too, spicy scent and rough stems deceptively frosted in delicate white flowers.

The raspberries are still there, but I hardly pick them anymore. Scattered berries roast in the sun or are eaten by birds.

Peaches hang heavily on branches, golden-pink and August-colored, waiting for gentle hands or ants—whichever consumes them first.

Pears sit crisp and green in their trees, the odd branch swathed in caterpillar nets. When they are ready they will fall to the ground unblemished, still crunchy, but bursting with course sweetness.

Quinces, by contrast, sit low to the ground in their bush. They, too, are hard and green, but they are also taciturn and unyielding. They will stay sour and mouth-puckering when they ripen. Not even animals will eat them, so they find their way into jams and chutneys instead.

The days smell like toasted grass and baked leaves and melancholy. Like something that knows it is coming to an end.

And something is coming to an end, for August is harvest time. It is a month of plenty, ripe for the picking. It is the culmination of the year's plans, the peak of all growth before a gentle ascent. It is the beginning of the end, before the year settles down to sleep.

This sadness saturates the air. I breathe it into my soul and there it sits, an alien presence, but somehow entirely too human.

For us humans, too, things are beginning to change. Plans are made. advisors assigned and meetings set. We, too, are moving on.

I've been writing about my surroundings a lot less recently. Perhaps because the panic of new things is beginning to set in. I find myself unconcerned with physicality, preferring to disappear into a book or TV. I have distanced myself from the world of trees and grass and birds, choosing instead to indulge my mind and look to the future—leaving these days behind.

August is the manifestation of a farewell. It is the time when summer becomes a relic, June days gathering dust. It is the time when nature, and I, must turn away from the old and venture into the next life. But racing ahead too quickly is an injustice, too. I still must remember to pick the peaches when they are ripe.