Summer's End

It's Labor Day Eve and all weekend I have felt overwhelmingly sad. It is the bittersweetness of knowing that a perfect summer is over. I love summer. And not working has made summer as sweet as childhood. I love corn and watermelon and peaches and sangria. I love hot dogs and hamburgers and fresh blackberries and zucchini. I love going to the beach, I love boogie boarding. I love sunsets and cook outs and drinking wine on a warm summer evening with friends. I love watching children run around outside together at dusk--children who have just met but are best friends by the end of the evening. I love being sandy, showering, and then eating dinner clean and slightly sunburned and so happy. This summer I have loved watching Benji collect feathers on the beach, and create feather labyrinths in the sand. I have loved watching him leap off the edge of the pool and swim to me underwater. I have loved having him boogie board on my back in big waves and scream like he is on the roller coaster of his life and beg and beg for one more ride! I have loved watching Theo learn to boogie board like a master--even if he terrifies half the parents on the beach with his fearlessness. But he holds on and bounces out of the waves like a pro. I have loved watching Theo learn to swim and dive and play chess. I have loved collecting sea shells and rocks until our pockets are so full our pants are falling down. I have loved lazy evenings with Lorenza, sitting under twinkling lights in the backyard and listening to emotional girly music our husbands would never tolerate--pouring our souls out to each other as you only can to friends you have known for a long long time. I loved seeing Diana Ross with Alana and Gina, sitting so close we could practically touch Diana's sparkles. I loved my Wellesley reunion, sleeping with my husband in a narrow dorm bed. I loved skinny dipping in Lake Waban by moonlight and listening to the Tupelos in the Claflin living room. I loved hearing my boys sing the Wellesley reunion songs--uninhibited and proud. I loved tunneling beneath the campus with the former swim team members, and emerging in the greenhouse across campus. I loved our time in the Hamptons--my perfect bike ride out to the beach with Jonathan at sunset. We saw deer and abandoned houses and magical pink and lavendar and blue light. I loved camping in Coronado in Judy and John's backyard and showering by moonlight in the backyard. I loved the LIttle Ranch and floating down the river. I loved going to City Lights and reading Isabel Allende in Marin County. I loved being outside, being strong, being covered with salt and sun and sea. I lost a best friend. But even that came in a deep, beautiful, life-changing and life affirming way. She gave me a gift and I had the time to accept it and be with her and witness the miracle of death. And now summer is over. Tonight. Jonathan says he is not sad because it is always summer in California. And in a way he is right. September and October are the best months of the year in Southern California. But it's not the weather, or even the shortening days...Margie says I am sad because even though we celebrate New Year's in January, the new year really begins with school. And it is true. It is an exciting new stage. We have so much to look forward to. Theo will be in his new school, a kindergartener at last. Benji will be at Canyon all morning long, and is ready to take classes on his own. I will have time of my own again, to write, and move forward on my book. It is all good. They are the signs of lives moving forward, growing, getting better. I am excited. And yet...I am sad. I am sad with the sadness that comes with knowing something perfect has ended.