The End of Summer? Take A Few Mental Pictures!

This morning as I was sitting on the veranda having coffee and reading "The Piano Shop At The Left Bank" (wonderful book by the way), I received through the early morning breeze, the first scent of Autumn. Although just the end of July, I assume that the cool evenings that we have been having are responsible for this "essence of summer's end".

When our children were still in school and we approached the end of summer, a feeling of dread would over come me. My women friends would approach their children's first days back at school as a celebration and a day of great glee. I would force myself to listen to their light sing song voices as they told of how they could not wait until their children were back at school and out from under foot. For these moms it was a time of delight, a moment of reprise, and most of all, it was time to get rid of the children during the day.

It was just the opposite for me. I always looked at the end of summer as the end of the year. My calendar was, and still is, based on the nine months of the school year from September through May. June, July and August were bonus months. The bonus months came to us free of charge, free from schedules, free from late night homework sessions and free from countless car pools. Summer days were always full of fun and they seemed to never end. Our children were up early and in bed late, with a rest in the middle of the day when the sun was the hottest. The end of summer and the beginning of school was not a time for me to celebrate. It was a time for me to reflect on the wonderful memories of the summer so that they could sustain me through the winter.

A very dear friend of mine felt the same way as I did about summer with the children. We were always able to snicker at our other friends and wonder how in the world they could miss the entire point of summer. They were missing so much of life. How could they look at summer as a time of drudgery and a time were their children were just a nuisance? Listening to them worry about the up coming summer months made my friend and I feel as if we were from another planet and we loved it!

One Labor Day weekend as my dear friend and I were sitting at the lake watching our children (all seven of them) swimming and sailing, their tan wet bodies glistening in the sun, she shared with me her acute ability to take mental snap shots. She explained that when there was a moment that she wanted to remember for ever, she took a mental photograph by looking intently at the entire picture. This allowed her to pull the picture out of her memory at any moment. I tried it immediately and I am still able to remember my very first mental photo. I can see the vivid yellow, orange and red autumn colors of the trees surrounding the lake. I can visualize the children jumping off of the raft and into the water. I can still see the colors of their swimsuits contrasting with the bright yellow of their life jackets, and amazingly enough, I can hear their far away voices as they screamed with delight while they experienced one of the last weekends of that summer.

And so....there has been no blog writing this summer. We have filled our summer to capacity. Our days have been controlled by whimsical spur of the moment activities. Our weeks have been filled with long walks to the lake, messy ice cream cones, Sunday morning men's tennis, Monday night music at the park, picnics, house guests, outdoor special events, and gardening in the country. Putting pen to paper or fingers to computer key boards take precious moments out of these warm sunny days. During the summer we turn Three Stories into a resort and we enjoy a long three month sabbatical. We come and go with the excitement of sight seers on a European vacation. We eat our meals on verandas, porches and in courtyards, and on cool evenings we open windows and turn our bedrooms into breezy sleeping porches. Summer passes too quickly, winter lasts too long, and life is always too short, but we are sure to find our individual precious moments.

And so...with the first scent of Fall in the air, I have a wake up call. I activate my mental camera and I snap the best photos possible during these last weeks of summer. I won't forget to add the smells and capture all of the colors. I will etch the pictures permanently in my mind so that these memories are with me forever. Try it!!