Some months you can see coming. A mountain on the horizon. The road straight. All the green at the bottom. The red in the middle blended into orange and then pink and capped white against a sprawling blue. Like October. You can see it right now.
September, you don’t see. It used to be back-to-school, but August stole that show since the kids all return far ahead of the Labor Day strikes. The first September weeks now stretch in what seems uncountable days. Hoarders pulling out everything marked Halloween. In a day it becomes the end of October. The streets and the shops and the office and the social feeds haunting attention deficit need for the last day of a month that’s only just filling the bottom of the windscreen.
I am trying to enjoy the end of summer and get stuck in some mental dust settling over whatever clarity I’m struggling to maintain. Like that late afternoon confusion. The yard cut, the chores done, but the hour a bit too early for alcohol. Too soon for a backyard sprawl. In September it seems to stay that hour for days. As usual, my mind rushes busy bridging metaphors. Trying to catch my breath. Figuring out why my exterior life doesn’t match my interior intentions.
The day and the night in constant quarrel. Everyone speeding up. Telling me to look. Pointing at the pretty mountains. My heart protests. My compass spins. It is sometimes hard to breathe.
If I am to be genuinely grateful, I must appreciate the context. I feel a hint of cool but am still wearing sandals and tees. Burning bean burgers on the grill. Hanging out with the hummingbirds hanging on to summer. The robins born beneath the drain spout now healthy juveniles remaining to worm. Their zen voices void of restlessness. Their eyes unconfused. I need their songs more than I expected. I wish I could sing their songs. But I am glad to listen.
So, it seems that I, in the end, when given chance, am at least able to scrounge small pieces of peace in the month I can longer see. But I do miss when September was clear in the eyes and mind. A savored time for equatorial transition. A favorite hoodie.
The Autumn will come in its own time. As the greater powers have scheduled. September will always own this and I’m glad.
Thus I, too, shall remain unseen.
Waiting.
1. Cover photos by Author.
© Copyright William Hazel, 2024
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