Summersend

Kirsty MacColl--"Last Day Of Summer" (mp3)
The Shaky Hands--"Summer's Life" (mp3)
Bob Dylan--"Summer Days" (mp3)

For us school types, at least at this school, the summer is officially over. It ended as it usually does, with a whimper, rather than a bang, with a series of small ("really, we only need you for a few minutes," "the meeting shouldn't last more than an hour," "you only have two hours in the morning and two hours at night; otherwise you're free") obligations and requirements that eat away at increasingly larger portions of the day until you find yourself where we are right now--with a full day of school under our belt.

But no one wants to give in without a fight, least of all me. I've come home, put my shorts, t-shirt, and sandals on, lit the mosquito coils on the deck, and planned an evening of watching it get darker even while it stays warm outside. I've watered the roses, looked at the new growth on the tomatoes and peppers and basil. The grass is as dead as it was yesterday, the bugs as plentiful. So I've taken my ukelele and gone to sit in the lingering heat, trying to find the right song for the twilight.

There will be many other attempts to preserve that summer feeling. The football team being away for three weeks will help--that's a chance to get to some Nightfalls on Friday nights. We will still have hot weekends where we won't have to think about school or "back to school" or any of that. The grass will grow again.

And then there's Labor Day. I don't know how I feel about the post-Labor Day start of school anymore. That's the way it was here way back when, and we've slowly crept backwards ever since, to where we're now two weeks early (it could be closer to three, but Labor Day is on the 1st this year). And now I guess I've adjusted to it.

But now it's hard to imagine a more bittersweet holiday, like we get a second end to the summer a couple of weeks from now. Still, you can bet between now and then I'll be out there grilling, playing music on the Bose, trying to keep the basil alive, and feeling the almost-imperceptible coolness creeping each night.

Kirsty MacColl, The Shaky Hands, and Bob Dylan are all available at Itunes.