(no subject)
Sep. 8th, 2006 08:44 pmYesterday I got home from work, changed into a tanktop, hopped on my bike, and took a long slow dreamy ride up and down the River Road, on a late afternoon that was soaked in Essence-of-Late-Summer, as heavy with sun as a peach with juice, aglow, ripe, languid.
Today? I just spent fifteen minutes trotting around performing the ritual of closing the big casement windows all around my house, for the first time in three months, closing and *latching* them, because it's 56 degree out, forecast to go down to 47 tonight, with a chilly searching wind. (They are in no mood to shut, what with three months of settling and warping, and quantities of leaves and spiderwebs and whatnot accumulated inside the frame, so getting them closed involves cranking them as far shut as possible; then going outside and pushing mightily on the windowframe to move them that last crucial inch; then coming inside and seeing if they'll latch; then going outside and shoving the windowframe some more. It would have been much better to do this *before * it got dark out, needless to say.)
And so ends another summer (though god knows we'll get more warm days before the snow flies). I'm fine with this; the past few weeks have been a showcase of the various glories and seductions of late summer, as beautiful an August as I can recall, but part of the pleasure of the season is the sense of autumn seeping in around the edges. The older I get, the more firmly I believe that this early-August to late-November stretch is the best season of the year by *far*, infinitely preferable to the more jejune April-May-June interlude. And there's still plenty of it left to enjoy.
Today? I just spent fifteen minutes trotting around performing the ritual of closing the big casement windows all around my house, for the first time in three months, closing and *latching* them, because it's 56 degree out, forecast to go down to 47 tonight, with a chilly searching wind. (They are in no mood to shut, what with three months of settling and warping, and quantities of leaves and spiderwebs and whatnot accumulated inside the frame, so getting them closed involves cranking them as far shut as possible; then going outside and pushing mightily on the windowframe to move them that last crucial inch; then coming inside and seeing if they'll latch; then going outside and shoving the windowframe some more. It would have been much better to do this *before * it got dark out, needless to say.)
And so ends another summer (though god knows we'll get more warm days before the snow flies). I'm fine with this; the past few weeks have been a showcase of the various glories and seductions of late summer, as beautiful an August as I can recall, but part of the pleasure of the season is the sense of autumn seeping in around the edges. The older I get, the more firmly I believe that this early-August to late-November stretch is the best season of the year by *far*, infinitely preferable to the more jejune April-May-June interlude. And there's still plenty of it left to enjoy.