Summer Dies Slowly

The powerful summer dies only after it has stayed for too long. Until it fades into the grander, more mellow autumn. I grieve the summer only as it dies. After its death, I abandon its beauty and the innumerable gifts and memories it has bestowed. I leave them to be rediscovered in the vague archives of memory, where events become entangled with emotions, smells, and memories of forgotten people.

Summer dies slowly. As the mighty aging sun succumbs to its mortality, its blinding white brilliance is replaced by a mature golden-orange glow. The large green persimmon leaves can no longer hide their browning curled edges. The broad expansive day begins to shrink, still fighting back against the ascendant night. Back-to-school advertisements creep into the newspapers. Golden rays of sunset stretch out upon the two-story houses as the day ends, each day a few moments earlier than the previous day.

Freedom. Lemonade. Popsicles. Cold baths. Water guns. 2% milk. Dirty feet. Stiff dry blades of grass. Letting the dog wander free. Windows open at night. Growth. Waking up late with sweaty collars to another sunny day. Clumps of mosquitoes. Tree climbing. Tag. India. Guilt. Wonder. Hope. Jealousy. Happy exhaustion. Trivial irritation. Sorrow. All these things have become jumbled together in the vast interlocking web of my memory.

Experiencing summer necessitates the expenditure of innocence, of which each individual has only a limited supply. Summer after summer, a little part of my youth is lost to the universe and supplanted by emotions and memories which can never be fully experienced again. Each summer, a little of the novelty and potential of life are given up as I experience more of it. The neighborhood friends I remember have lost their naive excitement and their once uncertain, impressionable souls have lost some of their receptivity. And slowly, over the years, all the pretty youthful faces and all the events in my memory of summer are distilled into an impalpable blob, only the essence of which I can remember.