With the final week of August upon us, it’s time to take stock of the summer so far and plan for the weeks that lie ahead. Savoring the summer that remains must be a part of those plans.
Labor Day and the start of school are just days — not weeks — away, so there is an urgency to these considerations. And if that weren’t enough to spur action, the memories of the soggy June and July ought to do the trick.
For many, the days of late August and the three weeks of September that still fall within astronomic summer are the best. The air, especially in the early morning and evening, is crisp and dry. The light is sharper. Mosquitoes are on the wane, and black flies are next year’s problem.
It’s the perfect time of year to turn off the TV and take a walk in the evening after work. Or gather the kids on Saturday morning for a family hike or bike ride. And, before the hectic school schedule begins, insist that the kids join you for a stroll around town on a Friday evening, stopping for ice cream as a treat and reward. Cell phones must be left at home.
And September is not too late to tackle an outside home improvement project or two; the impending frost forces prioritization. Cleaning the chimney, securing gutters, caulking windows and painting are perfect late summer endeavors.
After Labor Day, the crowds have thinned in Acadia National Park and in our state parks, yet lake and ocean water will never be warmer. Why not take in what visitors travel hundreds of miles to see? It’s also a great time for a romantic get-away, with rates at hotels and inns a bit better than in mid-summer. Tell the innkeeper you’re a local; you might get a discount.
There is a bittersweet character to these final weeks of summer, but let them encourage us to make the most of it.
New England poet Emily Dickinson captured the fleeting nature of summer when she wrote:
“To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie —
True Poems flee.”
And Maine’s own Sarah Orne Jewett described it this way: “This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight, like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders.”