September
Apparently I now write seasonally.
Oh, the end of summer. People get sentimental around Christmas, but I am completely defenseless when it comes to fall. The last days of August are the saddest of the year: the last time you jump in the water, the cooler breeze on your skin, the darkness arriving at 8 pm, a full schedule ahead, none of it involving good friends and good food... Ideally summer represents the best things about life. Spending time with people you love surrounded by nature that seems relaxed and ecstatic just like the humans. It easily transports you to a realm out of time. Nothing else counts but the present and it requires no effort whatsoever. As if there was the same tune playing in everyone's ear. It's how things ought to be. Always.
Summer is best when you are a child. Never again does one feel the air, water and sky the same way. At the time we are completely unaware of it. Only later in life the memories come back and you realize what it was. Watching my children going through this stage I relish reliving the experience with them. Except this time of course I lack the innocence and I'm aware of time passing. An inevitable effect of having children: the painful sobriety about the shortness of life.
Summer is how life should be. Except for that eternal part. Every fall I fall into sadness that things are over. There are more summers coming of course, but I can't quite shake the chill that those are still numbered in the end. Finding peace in the moment without fretting over what's to come is the hardest challenge. I can only try. And retry.
Until next summer.