Our Summer Made Her Light Escape

Three years ago, the hot, sticky August rain fell big and wet as I sat listlessly on my porch at home, crying over the way summer would not come again — never the same… August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time. (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)

Sylvia Plath is right about August being the odd uneven time, but it is clear she did not grow up in the Pacific Northwest. In Seattle, August is still the dry season. By this point every year, as brown grass crunches under my feet outside, I have forgotten that rain even exists. Here, August is the odd uneven time because while the weather is still summer, daylight drains unstoppably from the sky. I noticed a milestone a few days ago, outside at 5:45 AM (as usual) with Charlie, our Labrador Retriever. For the first time in months, the street lights were on when we stepped out our door. The era of early morning dawn was ending. On Monday, the lights winked out shortly after Charlie started sniffing the grass. Tuesday, however, the lights stayed on the entire time we were outside. That’s how quickly things shift this time of year.

If you have mastered living in the present, you will love late summer in Seattle, because each day is nearly perfect. It is only when you compare the time the sun spends in the sky today versus yesterday that you realize perfection can’t last and that The Big Dark is coming. And even though I’ve lived long enough to know that summer returns, this year I feel the weight of Plath’s observation: Summer returns, but never the same. This year, we are preparing to send our youngest off to college, out of our house and out of our state. When August comes around again, both children will be visiting us, not living with us. And if our older son gets an internship next summer, he may not come home at all…

And then there’s Charlie. Dogs’ accelerated lifespans teach tough truths. We found out this week that Charlie has hip dysplasia. Also this week, our younger son took Charlie for an unusually long session of fetch and swimming. While fun at the time for both of them, the overexertion meant that Charlie could not walk without crying in pain for the next day — heartbreaking for all involved. When we explained to our son that Charlie can’t play fetch anymore, you could hear the sadness in his voice: “But he loves fetch…” (Which is true! While it took him a few years to master this, now, once his eyes spy a ball in your hand, it becomes his singular focus to watch where it goes and bring it back to you. He treats it as his purpose for being on this Earth.) Thanks to Charlie, even our children are realizing that when August returns, it won’t be the same.

Throughout the year, as my coworkers have learned that my wife and I are about to enter the empty nest phase, they’ve asked, “How does it feel?” I’ve never known how to answer until now. “It feels like August. You ache with appreciation for something beautiful that’s fading.”

Emily Dickinson also wrote about this time of year, and I’ll leave you with her words. I love the pairing of the word “grief” in the first line with “beautiful” in the final line. “Beautiful grief,” that’s August.

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away—
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like Perfidy—
A Quietness distilled,
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon—
The Dusk drew earlier in—
The Morning foreign shone—
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace, As Guest, that would be gone—
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.