Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Yes, my post title quotes Rush ("Time Stand Still" if you weren't exactly sure which song). Astronomically, summer has a couple weeks remaining. But with Labor Day ending in about 45 minutes as I type this, summer is perceptively over.
Back in May, I calculated that summer would last 102 days. Well, 102 days have passed. Did we get the most out of our summer? I think we got as much fun out of it as we possibly could. Yes, there were some lazy days, and I never did make it golfing, but as a whole, Summer 2011 rocked. And of course, it went too fast.
Here's a testament to the quality of this summer: I haven't worn socks in at least a month. Between working a part-time job in which I don't have to dress up, the warm weather, and not being able to go running in the past weeks (thanks to the time taken up by the new puppy and bruising my ribs on a roller coaster at Lagoon), I have not worn socks since Aug. 1 -- the last day I went running. Before that, the only socks might have also been running or working out. The few hikes we did I wore my new Keens, which are rugged enough for milder trails. The picture above is from the Michael Franti concert -- an event more than any in which shoes are discouraged. The whole summer has been like this.
But the barefoot/sandal streak is bound to come to an end, and I'll be visiting the sock drawer daily. After enduring hot weather before we went on vacation, humid weather on vacation, and more hot, dry weather in August, the heat wave in Salt Lake City finally broke last week. Evenings are a little cooler again, and though the temperature is warm, it hasn't been above 90 and won't be all week. Sunsets are getting earlier. School has begun. The NFL starts this week. I capitulated on listening to the August/September playlist on my iPod and enjoyed hearing The Police's "King of Pain" and Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" on it.
The end of summer is bittersweet, but the season is meant to end. I wonder if residents of Key West or Hawaii or some other warm clime discern between summer and the rest of the year. All my life so far, summer has ended and fall began, followed by winter and spring, then summer again. I'm looking forward to this fall, and not just because it was inevitable. I'll look forward to next summer as well and try to extract as much fun, memories and nostalgia out of it as I can. And as much as I want that summer to arrive, there's no hurry. There's fun, memories and nostalgia to find in every day until then. Why should I rush that?
Back in May, I calculated that summer would last 102 days. Well, 102 days have passed. Did we get the most out of our summer? I think we got as much fun out of it as we possibly could. Yes, there were some lazy days, and I never did make it golfing, but as a whole, Summer 2011 rocked. And of course, it went too fast.
Here's a testament to the quality of this summer: I haven't worn socks in at least a month. Between working a part-time job in which I don't have to dress up, the warm weather, and not being able to go running in the past weeks (thanks to the time taken up by the new puppy and bruising my ribs on a roller coaster at Lagoon), I have not worn socks since Aug. 1 -- the last day I went running. Before that, the only socks might have also been running or working out. The few hikes we did I wore my new Keens, which are rugged enough for milder trails. The picture above is from the Michael Franti concert -- an event more than any in which shoes are discouraged. The whole summer has been like this.But the barefoot/sandal streak is bound to come to an end, and I'll be visiting the sock drawer daily. After enduring hot weather before we went on vacation, humid weather on vacation, and more hot, dry weather in August, the heat wave in Salt Lake City finally broke last week. Evenings are a little cooler again, and though the temperature is warm, it hasn't been above 90 and won't be all week. Sunsets are getting earlier. School has begun. The NFL starts this week. I capitulated on listening to the August/September playlist on my iPod and enjoyed hearing The Police's "King of Pain" and Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" on it.
The end of summer is bittersweet, but the season is meant to end. I wonder if residents of Key West or Hawaii or some other warm clime discern between summer and the rest of the year. All my life so far, summer has ended and fall began, followed by winter and spring, then summer again. I'm looking forward to this fall, and not just because it was inevitable. I'll look forward to next summer as well and try to extract as much fun, memories and nostalgia out of it as I can. And as much as I want that summer to arrive, there's no hurry. There's fun, memories and nostalgia to find in every day until then. Why should I rush that?
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