As I lie in bed on an early morning in late August, I feel that something has changed. What can it be? It’s the tiniest bit darker than it was yesterday, but that’s not it. The breeze from the open window is marginally cooler than it was yesterday, but that’s not it either.
The sounds. That’s what’s wrong. There aren’t any. Oh, there’s a subliminal ratcheting of night peepers winding down, but the birds are silent. All summer long they have caroled, courted, disputed, remarked and scolded, starting at the most tentative hint of daylight. Have they given up, gotten tired of the whole thing? Are they packing, getting ready to travel?
I recall that every late summer this eloquent silence surprises me, as clear an indicator that it’s all ending as the darker mornings and evenings. But the changes in daylight are subtle, giving us time to adjust. This quiet is abrupt, unyielding. Later in the day there will be the occasional chirp or caw, but the concert is over. The birds have better things to do now.
Later in the morning I go for a walk, noticing, cataloging. The signs are all around – summer is leaving us. Squirrels scramble everywhere, taking insane risks with oncoming cars, burying seeds and nuts near their winter homes. Under an oak my footsteps crunch on a solid layer of acorn shells. The tree above is alive with rustling noises as squirrels leap and forage. There’s an urgency about them that they haven’t shown for months. In the street a black squirrel dodges a patient driver who has slowed to let it cross the street, carrying in its mouth a big green ball half again as large as a ping pong ball. It’s a seed or nut – black walnut, I think.
The air is cool in the shade, sharply hot in the sun, reminiscent of the high desert in California. The intensity of the sun, maybe because of lower humidity, is completely different now than it was in June or July. Now the shade is cooler, the sun is hotter – or is it that the contrast is greater than in past weeks? On a Michigan midsummer day moving to the shade is no guarantee of comfort, but today it would be a given. Today you could be too cool in the shade.
Leaves are beginning to drift downward, some from trees that might be unhealthy, unable to hold them any longer. Maybe it isn’t worth it to them, what with the silence of the birds and the industriousness of the squirrels. In any case, soon there will be enough leaves so that I can scuff as I walk instead of keeping a watchful eye out for slick mud that has collected in summer-shower puddles.
I love fall. Many of us do. But summer seems to come and go so quickly that we long for just a bit more. There will be more summer-like days ahead, certainly. But the birds have told us not to get too hopeful. It’s time to move on, from raspberries and cherries to late peaches and apples.
Ah! Apples. Each season has its unique gifts. We enjoy and appreciate them all. But when morning becomes suddenly quiet, it’s hard not to be just a bit melancholy.
Lovely description of what I am feeling in Walla Walla, WA!