The Far End Of Summer August 28th 2023

     I've always found this time of year a contradiction.   The end of August being the end of summer vacation when I was a kid meant the beginning of another dreaded school year.  Now I loved all the new blank scribblers and new pens and the new outfit Mom bought me.  So much promise in the coming year.  A faint hope that the tools for school would be used properly.  That they would be filled with the words, fractions, formulas, and theories worthy of my new clothes.   Feelings that barely lasted the day.

    And it was September.  My birthday month.  Warm colourful days.  Cool evenings where darkness came early.  Playing in the darkness was rare in my home and native land as summer months saw the sun set long after bed time.   In the winter,   well it was winter.   Lots to love about this time of year.   And its shortness contributed to the urgency of our enjoyment.   An urgency that remains within to this day.

    It is the end of the hiking season.  You can almost count the rounds of golf before the course closure.  Evening gatherings will soon have to be inside.  Grand children won't be readily available for a visit.   And through it all, one is so painfully aware it will be nearly six months before our emancipation from winter returns.  

    On these beautiful days of the third season the harvest begins.   Again with the urgency.   It is never desirable to have a long drawn out harvest.   At one time the prairies of my home and native land were called the bread basket of the world.   Watching the combines gang up and produce the stuff from which bread is made out of a waving golden sea is a sight to behold.   A sight which is even more impressive under a huge round orange harvest moon.  

   Up here, we celebrate our thanksgiving in early October.  It only makes sense to give thanks for a harvest shortly after harvest.  The third week in November is the dead of winter up here.  Those of you who know me know I am Mr. Christmas.   But in truth Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday.  Although the leaves are usually long departed by the second week in October,  the days usually remain quite warm.   It makes for easy travel and outside activity. Thanksgiving is a family holiday without distraction.  No Santa, no gifts, no commercial pressures.  It is the feast of family.  

   And for all that,  I can't shake the feeling that another summer has come to an end.   Gatherings and movements of the family are restricted by school.  The rapid setting sun and coolness of the evenings, the limited number of hiking days, rounds of golf,  coffee on a patio by the lake create a melancholy that walks hand in hand with all those wonderful sights, sounds, feelings that make autumn.   A season best described as an internal juxtaposition. 

A contradiction that is all part of the far end of summer.