August Savors

 

Each year I remind myself that summer is not an awful season merely to be endured.  I remind myself of that most often in August.  

August in Georgia is humid, prone to sporadic and often frightening thunderstorms, and comes with unbearable heat.  There are seats to scorch your bottom when you foolishly forget that they've been baking in the sun all day long.  You dare not go outside barefoot even on the grass, and most certainly not if you have to walk across wooden porch floors, concrete patios or asphalt.  OUCH!

And then there are gnats.  Flies.  Snakes.  

There's not one holiday to relieve the agony of it either.  No, August is not a pleasant month.

All of this.  

And still, as we go deeper into August, I find more and more that I become mindful that summer is fleeting and I'm missing it.

This is the time to go out in the early morning and admire the heavy dew upon the grass.  It's a wonder to walk through the grass and have enough dew to wash your feet.  A spiritual experience of sorts that is unexpected and welcome.   

Or to go out in the evening and water the garden while you sit just within the range of the sprinkler.  Oh, the feel of that lovely cool water!  And even better if you have a little one who wants to go running in and out of the droplets, to stand shivering in the heat of the sun, then run through once again.  

This is the time for watermelon, well chilled of course, and juicy tomato sandwiches and yummy corn on the cob.  Granny always served cantaloupes this time of year.  Chilled and cut into slices for breakfast.  Halved and filled with vanilla ice cream for dessert.  Cantaloupes then weren't giant melons but just filled the palm of an adult's hand.   The combination of sweet ice cream and the musky sweetness of a cantaloupe that has been served at room temperature is quite delicious. 

It is a season of bounty all around us, both in fruits and vegetables.  Visiting a farmer's market is always a study in abundance this time of year.  The colors alone are a feast for the eyes.  And the flavors are so wonderfully fresh.

And everywhere we ride, we see visible signs of the coming harvest season.  This year soybeans, cotton, peanuts are so green and lush because of the rain we've had that I can't even imagine the farmer's complaining over yields.  Hay is being cut and rolled into huge round bales.

Deer have raised their fawns to somewhat of an independent and leggy stage and we see them often standing in a field nibbling away, raising their heads curiously as our car approaches.

But signs of seasonal change also abound.  First there is a certain aroma to August.  Of scorched fields where feed corn has been mowed down.  The sweet smell of freshly cut hay.  The cloying sweetness of mimosa in the hedgerows.  And then there is the dry rattling sound of seed pods and leaves who are past their prime but still green.

What Granny referred to as Mallow has extended long branches full of buds waiting to burst into soft pink flowers.  Goldenrod stands high, with a brilliant lime green bud atop.  Here and there in odd places, you'll find a stand of it already blooming.  There's a tendency to sneeze when you go outdoors.  If you check, you'll find ragweed has started its annual blooming and pollen counts are high.  Foxtail grasses have gotten leggy and the 'tails' atop them are long and lovely, truly resembling a fox's tail.  Other wild grasses abound, bowing and bending under the gentlest breeze, however rare.

There's a mysterious cool draft that will suddenly creep around you as you're sitting outdoors in the evening.  And a tendency at day's end to pull covers tightly up to your ears because it seems cooler than it has all the previous weeks of summer.  And then the well water suddenly gushes icy cold from the faucet.  All signs that this season is a fleeting one now.

Of course, it's a misery outdoors.  It just is. But it's all part of August's loveliness.

And do you know what else is part of August's loveliness?  The possibilities ahead.  As a new school year begins, as the Jewish calendar draws to a close and begins a New Year, I feel a true anticipation, a refreshing of spirit that only occurs when August draws to a close.    Perhaps that's why I can never fully loathe August.  It's an end and a beginning, all wrapped up in one.

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