“Let July be July. Let August be August. And let yourself just be, even in the uncertainty. You don’t have to fix everything. You don’t have to solve everything. And you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things.”
— Morgan Harper Nichols
I was so surprised to learn that many kids are heading back to school this week when August is just in mid-bloom.
Last week, there were mornings that carried just a wee bit of the chill of an early fall. And it seems that no matter how old I become, I still hate to see summer’s freedom end for all of the children who are heading back to school.
Making it count
Remember that frantic, frenetic feeling of packing in every single thrill as summer came to a close?
We have to skip some rocks! And it would be a great day to catch some fish. That means some of us need to dig for worms. “I know just the place!” one of my siblings would shout.
The rush was on to somehow do it all, at least one more time, before the bright yellow bus screeched to a halt in front of our house, and school bells began to ring once again.
“Grab the walkie-talkies,” someone would say, because Dad had reminded us that he would need us if third crop hay dried enough for baling. Someone had to be appointed as the person to run one of those to Dad, in order to stay in touch with the hay report.
If we weren’t going to be near the house where he could easily find us, it was our responsibility to check in with Dad from time to time. If we were needed right away, the message could be relayed by that miraculous invention, the good old walkie-talkie.
If the weather was good and hot, there was no doubt we would be taking a dip in the farm pond. If it was a rare cool day, we might retreat to the hay mow and devise any number of games to be played there. It always involved rearranging the hay bales to suit our game. Why was it that moving those particular bales around didn’t seem like work?
Shopping trip
For my older sisters, a shopping trip might be necessary before the first day of school. As the fourth daughter, I relied on those great hand-me-downs, which I accepted without complaint. In fact, when my sisters revealed a new school dress at the end of their day of shopping, I would grin to myself, knowing that pretty thing was going to be in my closet in just a matter of time.
I would find myself hoping like crazy that I didn’t have to be dragged along for school shopping and endure the horrid task of trying on clothes. I always hoped for enough hand-me-downs from the year before so I could skip that agony. There was still way too much to do.
One summer, one of the rental houses on our parents’ farm was empty, so we became detectives trying to solve a crime. We invented official-sounding names for ourselves, devised a made-up method for taking fingerprints, and scoured the outside property for footprints. I was Detective Marjorie McGillicutty, the first woman officer ever assigned to such a difficult case.
Of course, we solved the crime before milking time, and we darn near burned up those walkie-talkies in the process.
The calendar seemed to be playing a cruel trick on us, those last days of freedom flying way too fast. To this day, when someone says “Summer’s almost over,” I find myself looking at the calendar and wanting to shout, “It’s still August!”
Enjoy every minute.
