Through The Overgrown Arbor
Sitting behind the school bus I watch as the doors swing open and, one after the other, bedraggled students who had left their houses in freshly pressed fashion only hours before, now tumble out weary, wrinkled and limp.
It’s just too hot to already be back in school.
How well I remember my own long ago days when the air hung overcoat heavy and the soft and constant murmur of the fans drowned out all serious thought. I would stare out the classroom’s open windows and watch as my imagination floated away to more salubrious climes.
I wished, how I wished, for Autumn.
And the teacher could tell by my faraway gaze and would tap on my shoulder to say,
“Be careful, Pamela. Don’t wish your life away”.
Her warning was wise, but I couldn’t help it. All the enthusiastic Carpe diems in the world could never render a miserably hot Summer palatable to me, and as no Summer has been more miserably hot than this one, I have again been caught, more than once, gazing out the windows, wishing for the fall.
I am weary of the tyrannical heat that captured the garden and made the flowers wince. Weary of seeing the ever optimistic white dog bolt from the house every morning, only to be drenched in disappointment by the overbearing air.
My soul needs the crispness, the sweetness, of Autumn.
I need to welcome a wide-awake light into each of my rooms - a light sharp enough to slice through the ponderous gloom of the summer and clear out the hot haze that has covered my mind.
I need to bake apple pies and plant yellow chrysanthemums in mossy stone planters.
I need to buy blue notebooks and yellow pencils and write down my dreams.
I need to see stacks of firewood and fields of orange pumpkins.
I need to smell cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.
And I need to follow the white dog on a run through the woods.
Many days I have wished to end this long Summer journey - to pass through the overgrown arbor into the fresh, clean light of a September day.
The calendar page has finally turned.
Happy, Happy September!
Painting above by Santiago Rusinol i Prats
