A Day, a Month, a Season Passes

It was with a certain degree of whimsy he recalled just yesterday, it seemed, there was a mood of excitement afoot. Such stirring came, as odd sensations do, with the thought of a summer ahead. That wondrous 90-day allotment of long, muggy days and sweltering nights is what the cape exists for in the minds of many. Those nights, lit by meandering fireflies emitting dots of brightness ‘neath bush and flower, are also lit from above by heat lightning, giving summer its true meaning.
Yes, it would soon be Memorial Day, and there would be solemn remembrances, then a cookout. Everyone would secretly have vowed not to eat as much this year as last, knowing well they would ignore their own warnings and hurt from too many hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad and dessert. Out the window, in the door yard garden, orange day lilies exploded in blossoms of deep orange. He admired them, since lilies were, to him, a visual gift from the Creator. He took special note of each as it prepared to bloom, all that trouble and time without a bit of human intervention, then gone in one day. It made him marvel as, daily, he would fetch the newspaper from the box out front.
Somehow, just as that short span ended, there were graduation parties. Those were late this year, because many snow days stalled their last day. Then, as the balloons were deflating from that merriment there was more planning for the Fourth of July. The apex of the short season had finally arrived, as Christmas arrives “unexpectedly” every Dec. 25.
There were endless lines of traffic, short tempers, red lights that lasted for ages, it seemed, and finally the light changed to green. Traffic flowed; progress was made on three Garden State Parkway overpasses. In the twinkling of an eye there was a magnificent “super moon” that arose July 12, supposedly bigger and more lustrous than others before it.
A month later meant another even greater “super moon” which he also gazed upon in wonder. It was that same moon the ancients gazed at through war and peace; the one much photographed wasn’t it just yesterday?
Changed by a scant few minutes daily, the brightness of morning, which had begun around 4:30 a.m. “just a day or so ago” remains dark quite a bit longer. Amazingly, in the backyard could they be some multi-colored leaves beginning to fall from branches that, only a short span ago, were green buds?
The summer of ’14 is about to unofficially close. Some college students, hired for the season, have already departed for the hinterlands of higher education. As toadstools pop up after a wet spell, so “Help Wanted” signs have begun to sprout here on the cape. Business owners hate this time of year, not only because it’s a harbinger of change, but that they often must man the grill or the cash register themselves, bereft of young helpers.
Where did it go, he puzzled that lightheartedness when spring was finishing out and summer had yet to begin?
“Back to school” sales and signs were present everywhere. Composition books, those cardboard backed books with black-and-white covers, were on sale, as were supplies, shoes and uniform items.
Youngsters, who seemingly only days before enjoyed the simple pleasures of rides at the 4-H Fair, cotton candy and giving it their all tossing a ball at a dunk tank, were now trying their best to forget the inevitable, that school was about to start.
They ignore the shortness of days as they leap, carefree, into swimming pools that are just a tad cooler than a few weeks ago. They do their best to put out of sight those parcels that cross the door from mail or by delivery truck laden with school clothes. Others find, to their amazement, that some of the clothes they wore last spring to school just don’t fit the same. How can that be? They haven’t changed a bit, or so they think.
Labor Day is now drawing all the sales attention. Families are gearing up for the big holiday with cookouts and hot dogs and hamburgers, chicken and steaks. Everyone is pledging, secretly, of course, they will definitely not eat as much as they did on Memorial Day or Fourth of July.
He smiles as he gazes up at the night sky. It feels a bit cooler. Evening falls sooner and darkness lasts a bit longer. To make the season special, he hears crickets, and he’s grateful for that sense. Up near the eaves, he notes a spider spinning an intricate web. There it will wait patiently hoping for an errant insect to capture. Who taught the spider how to spin? Who instructed the crickets in their chorus? Such things simply amaze him.
In the morning, on the car and grass, dew glistens. In a day or two, he ponders, that dew will be frost. That’s the passage of time each day special unto itself.