The weather has turned sultry, and late summer is as I would expect it to be: hazy horizons, sweaty brows, hot and humid. I don’t know about you, but I appreciated the cool temperatures we had this summer, even if it did mean delayed tomato ripening. The corn fields are tall and deep green, the soybeans stretch out upon acres and acres, and though there have not been many, the occasional twinkle of lightning bugs welcome me onto a nighttime porch.
I wonder about the smaller numbers of insects this year. While I do see the swoop and flutter of a Monarch or a black Swallowtail, there are not nearly so many butterflies this year. The expected numbers of mosquitoes are far less, as well. Not complaining, just an observation.
We so often complain and worry about what we cannot change: the weather, the times, each other! I must be mellowing out in my old age, because I am becoming much more thankful and mindful of living in the moment. Being grateful for little pleasures and blessings. We so often overlook that, I think. Always eying the horizon. But now the horizon is closer than I once realized, and the sun drawing down to its setting, and I have things yet to do in the daylight that is left. So, why not do it with thankfulness and gladness?
Even the dog days of summer can be a time to take life slower if my energies are not up to a furious workload. To enjoy a slow day snipping off the spent lavender blossoms, to commune with God as I go about the business of the day, knowing that this day was given me, to flow with it’s seasonal experience and not try to remake it in my imagination or force its shape to my will. There are times for that. I am sure when temperatures return to cooler levels, and autumn’s unmistakable scent and feeling is in the air, I will return to innumerable chores and invigorated efforts.
But hopefully the wiser for having taken a bit of slower pace in this late summer sabbatical.
