This is an old song—for a new but disappearing summer.
The berries, on Mary’s mountain ash, have begun their transubstantiation.
From green to gold to orange. The mystery, the sacrament will end in scarlet. The blood of winter.
Other rituals, other communions are less distinct. Dark that rushes into evening earlier and earlier. The daily degree-by-degree tiptoe toward cool. Marigolds and zinnias at their most exuberant. Petunias struggling to birth their last blooms. Swimming pools closed. School sales replaced by Halloween frippery.
I am at once content and wistful. The kitties make themselves at home. Beloved friends are packing to visit as I write. Baby tomatoes ripen. Root beer floats still taste of paradise. Newly washed windows stand open. Magpie parents gossip. Their teenagers hopping awkwardly nearby. I hear the rhythmic staccato of nail guns on roofing projects. “NOW, NOW, NOW.”
Have I really lived 75 sweet summers? Knowing the exquisite pleasure of a house swept fresh as dark comes. The elixir of ice water. The blessing of a faint breeze across the dishpan. The generous sweat of work. Sunsets shared. Thunder. Lightning. A river of hail across the porch.
So once more a priceless summer. Rich in laughter and little children and longtime friends and hugs. A Manhattan made to perfection. These exquisite kittens. Books whose steel-edged writing took me to the darkness and detail of World War II and whose soft curves to the light of rivers and oceans and otter.
Once more I risk squeezing the hours too tightly. Wanting so much that I’ll lose the gentle grace of this season.
More than ever, then, I need the sacrament of acceptance. My own metamorphosis from summer heat to winter sleep. Sun-warmed to house-sheltered. I’ve tried the “little engine that could” philosophy—a hollow vow that I never really meant.
I’ll do better, I think, being honest with myself and the season. I‘m not alone being drawn to our miraculous summers; our heart-stopping landscapes that tell so many stories. And this summer those riches came without smoke. I could go to bed with my mountain panorama standing guard.
I’m not alone, either, in my aversion to what’s coming soon. Cold. Our season of cold is long. While you may still be raking leaves at Halloween, we’ve likely swaddled our children in long underwear and still require them to wear their coats and boots over costumes. And when you’re cutting daffodils in March and April, I’ll be shoveling snow and purchasing bouquets at Safeway. Dark. Not Alaska dark—but deep nonetheless. Dark that will eat up the morning and evening. Leaving us with a low, struggling sun during work hours. Ice. We are not the champion snowfall state either. But in our weather patterns, snow and miserly warmth intertwine to leave us icy footings. Among my friends, we know which businesses clear their parking lots and which let neglect create skating rinks.
And yet, I would not leave.
So once more, I will try for acceptance. For a celebration of what is. For a ceremony honoring understanding—as I’ve tried to learn my whole damn life—that I cannot have it all. That what I have is priceless. That through incredible good fortune and defiance I found myself in a magical place. ©
This is not my first essay featuring mountain ash trees. Check here: https://stilllearninghowtofly.com/mountain-ash/
