Last days

The sun always seems hotter in September,
The wind weaker, the grass drier.
The sun always seems hotter in September,
As summer refuses to let go.

I found that scribbled poem on the back of a receipt a few weeks ago and almost threw it away because the rest of the stanzas were really bad. Actually, this isn't all that wonderful either, but I realized how true it was today.

September is a month that I both love and loathe. It's the month in which me and all my siblings were born, the month that both my parents and my sister were married. It's the month of notebooks and lunchboxes and freshly sharpened pencils. It's also a month of change and loss, bad memories and best-forgotten hurts. Out of all the months of the year, this is the one that stands out the most in my memories.

I want to love September because it heralds the end of summer and the slow descent into winter, my favorite season. The end of muggy heat and endless sun makes me happy and the first glimpses of fall colors on the trees is a beautiful sight. The only problem is that summer always has a hard time leaving. It seems like every year just when it seems like it's getting cooler and fall is on the horizon...summer comes back with a vengeance.

Sitting downtown tonight in 90 degree heat with no wind and listening to the lovely sounds of major road construction, I decided that the poem was right. It isn't like the temp wasn't this high in July, or that the wind was any better in August. It's just that it seems worse in September. Summer has already had it's fun and it's time for fall and winter to have the stage, but it just refuses to let go.

Reflections

Found in a small notebook that I used to carry with me when I spent time outdoors.

Everything looks pretty in reflection. Rocky bits, dirty hills, bare trees, gray clouds; they all shine in reflections. Even the plainest feature takes on a measure of elegance when reflected on water.

Even the means of reflection is ordinary on its own. Muddy water over dirty shores aren't all that beautiful. The water doesn't excel until it shows something other than itself. It's transformed into a thing of wonder when it smooths into glass and reflects the surrounding settings.

That's where the true beauty of reflections lie. Not in the individual pieces that make up the whole, but the combination of the two. Not the image, but the act.