It ain’t over ‘til it’s over

Let’s get this straight - the summer isn’t over yet, not today nor tomorrow. It doesn’t end when the kids return home from camp or when you begin back to school shopping. It doesn’t stop with school orientations or Rosh Hashanah preparations. It won’t even terminate with our celebration of the New Year on September 16. Summer officially ends when fall begins on September 21. After that comes Indian summer, a lingering taste of this blissful season. I intend to enjoy the spirit of summer as long as I can, despite the impending holiday calendar and the naysayers.

For me, endless summer days feel full of possibilities and enhanced sensations. My view is improved by the explosion of bright colors of grass, leaves and flowers and my ears are filled with the cheerful chatter of birds. I delight in the feel of grainy hot sand or cool, squishy seaweed under my toes, while inhaling the refreshing scent of the sea. I savor the taste of cool summer melons, freshly shucked corn and juicy sun ripened tomatoes.

In the next four weeks, I will surely continue to be outside as much as possible to relish the positive points of the season before it truly is over. I find time for a walk, read in the backyard, and make the most out of extended daylight hours. When working at home or driving around, I’m always on duty as the self appointed window monitor, shutting off the air conditioning and throwing the windows open the moment it’s feasible. I drive with the sunroof open aiming to keep the outdoors in as much as the heat permits, letting summer breezes air out our living spaces, continuing to feel connected to the natural environment.

Our society is always rushing ahead, adding to the pervasive culture of stress and tension unnecessarily. I’m all for trying to be organized, planning ahead and being ready, but I also want to be fully present in the moment in which I am currently living. As I’ve written before in this column, I loathe wishing the time away (except when I’m at the doctor’s office or another disagreeable situation, but I’m working on finding a silver lining for those times.)

Perhaps I’m alone here, but I just don’t get the clothing world’s marketing strategy. I avert my eyes from advertised fall fashions in the spring and from displays of spring fashions in the fall. I cringe, unable to try on a woolen sweater in summer heat. I get goose bumps considering a bathing suit in winter, preferring to keep on my cozy layers. I shun malls on beautiful sunny days, to shop on a commercial street, while on frigid days, an enclosed environment is a welcome destination.

The seasons become more complicated by introducing travel to destinations experiencing different weather from ours. Venturing in summer on a trip to Alaskan glaciers or fleeing winter for a climate break in the Caribbean is an amazing change of pace, though unsettling. Unless the voyage is unusually long, you still have to return to your own season and re-acclimate, literally. I warmly welcome my brother-in-law who is currently visiting us here, having left his southern hemisphere winter for our northern hemisphere summer. Though forced to endure this totally unnatural change by coming halfway around the world to see us, we hope to make it worth his while!

Some people live with no switch of seasons, which could be ideal or horrible depending on where or what weather you’re stuck with. It may be boring, predictable or uninspiring. Although I dread the advent of winter and even experience some “SAD”ness - seasonal affective disorder, I do believe that the changes are good. The transformation from one quarter to the next is dramatic. It keeps me alert and conscious of the ever shifting details in my surroundings. It makes me appreciate the magic in nature. It teaches me to accommodate and accept.

Even those living with just two seasons, dry or rainy, can find each one unrelenting. On visits to my husband’s home town in South Africa, it was mostly one or the other with not much of a happy medium. My mother in law refers to Durban Fever, that sluggish feeling created by the intense heat. Even the violent summer hailstorms end with an immediate return to high humidity. She remedies that by spending about six months in air conditioning. We experienced that recently in Austin’s “blow dryer heat,” venturing outside only in short spurts.

Though I don’t really have much of a choice anyway, I do prefer the somewhat unpredictable weather we live with here. I like that even the hottest chain of summer days will break for a sudden storm and a welcome reprieve of a drop in temperature. As I’m writing these words, it’s 11 pm on Sunday evening, the windows are wide open to the constant sound of the crickets, a soft, cool breeze is wafting in, the trains and planes are periodically coming and going. I take a deep breath in and out, and can’t help but feel peaceful, listening to the sounds of summer.

Miriam Bradman Abrahams is Cuban born, Brooklyn bred and lives in Woodmere. mabraha1@optonline.net