Wintersummer Ode

Photo by Rachel Medanic. All rights reserved.

Summer’s last gasp here in the Bay is the sprinkle of fog on the skin. It was here, I swear. Just last week, in fact. This “Summer” it was especially cool and foggy, like heavy outdoor air-conditioning left on for those of us in the coastal areas. Autumn is here and with it comes “summer” that everyone else knew just about everywhere else. This is a prayer of gratitude, not a muttered complaint. 

Wintersummer is dead! Long live Wintersummer 

Vacations have ceased leaving joyous echoes behind.  Microphones and stage fright are left behind in the shadows of old growth redwoods who have been witness to Family Camp for 50 years or longer. In their bark, they hear the echoes I and others have left of Cool and the Gang, Aretha Franklin and the Four Tops.

Photo by Rachel Medanic. All rights reserved.

Around the Bay Area, to the east and north, the whistles of Tule elk at mating season can be heard. Territorial stances are taken, observed and honored. A lucky photograph here at the Point Reyes Tule Elk Reserve; I retreated after this photo because this was "close enough."

Summer has begun.

The children are returning to school. Karl the Fog is contemplating vacation of his own and so the month of Fogust is waning. 

On sale, I found a molded plastic pool for my daughter—priced for “Summer” clearance. But not here, not in the Bay. Enjoyed sparingly because of the drought, I’ll fill it a few times for when the temperature goes beyond 72 degrees—the hot days of September and October (Septober?). The afternoons may even be punctuated by the aerial thunder of the Blue Angels that I heard 21 years ago as I was falling in love with the City of Love.

My trees’ leaves are turning. The figs are dropping. The tomatoes of a friend moving away to care for her family are ripe, delicious and temporary on the tongue. Summer in the Bay. Seasons changing. Lives shifting. Time to reap the first harvest. Babies, marriages, deaths, caring for the elderly, not caring for the elderly.

Summer is passing behind the evident curtain speaking in small whispers from the universe. As the wheel turns, I realize a friend in a state I’ve never been to may somehow in the future be connected with my work that also emanates from that place. It’s that realization that perhaps there is a grand design to the people we meet, the places we go and the things the universe brings into our lives…and when. But it's the shift of seasons that makes us sit back and take notice.