Ode to Summer

The heat in Baltimore has finally broken and it’s under 90°F for the first time in months. It’s lovely — my windows are wide open for much of the day, my cats firmly planted on the windowsills. It’s also a reminder that fall is just around the corner.

When this time of year hits, I spend more time in the present, soaking up every bit of sun and warmth, like Frederick the mouse, and noticing and appreciating all the little things about the season that will soon be a memory. This summer, especially, I am gathering up all the things about this season and this neighborhood.

Change is on the horizon: after five years of living in my current home, this is the last summer I will be here. I want to remember all the little things I have noticed and loved, to remember when it’s cold and dark and I am homesick.

Especially, I want to remember how early summer’s fireflies transition to the late summer sound of cicadas and crickets, and how the goldfinches gather in the thistles in June and July and make their way to the echinacea in August. I want to remember the deer who graze mostly unfazed on the hill behind the new development (and the foxes who played there last winter).

I want to remember the turn of each road, the walks with friends, the little libraries, the impromptu dog park, and how the ghosts of other seasons linger in kinesthetic memory as I pass — snow and holiday decorations, the lilacs and magnolias in bloom, wild cicadas making their 17-year debut in 2021, pumpkins and fourth of July banners.

This is a bittersweet moment. Change always is. For now, I will be present and soak up every moment.

And when he told them of the blue periwinkles, the red poppies in the yellow wheat, and the green leaves of the berry bush, they saw the colors as clearly as if they had been painted in their minds.”

Leo Lionni