I don’t like you, summer, but it’s still sad you’re gone: some nostalgia and stories
Just days ago I was contemplating yet another end of summer and reminiscing on summers past, was sitting on the embankment looking out over the water, watching a fisherman wading into the murky waters, up to his waist, calmly and patiently casting his rod into the reeds, when I opened up to the start of chapter 2 of my book and came upon this lovely passage, as if there was an inner spirt in my kindle tapping into my thoughts. My goodness, it was so apt:
‘Melanie swam like a blind, earless fish in a sea of sedation, where there was no time or memory but only dreams. Summer changed to autumn before she surfaced and lay palely on her bed, remembering.’
The Magic Toyshop, Angela Carter
June 2006, the World Cup in Germany: a fun month in an up-and-down summer
I’ve written about the seasons and weather way too many times on this blog over the years and I don’t want to rehash yet again about how much I adore autumn and dislike summer. A very brief summery (sorry): I struggle with heat, my brain doesn’t function in the hot months, I feel lethargic when it’s clammy and sticky, and sometimes it’s a battle to be physically comfortable. The moments I really enjoy, the balmy evenings at an outdoor café, reading in the park are few and far between, and I’m not a beach or sea person.
Are the handful of pleasant moments enough to compensate for the bad bits?
I don’t want to further piss off my dear readers by bashing summer too much, so let me take on a more wistful tone: it’s still sad to see summer winding down. For as much as I look forward to the start of autumn – again, I’ve talked about this at least 2 or 3 times – no other season has such a forlorn, elegiac ending to it than summer. There’s something so poignant about the heat and fading sun of August transitioning into the crisp chills of September, and the changing of the leaves and the start of the new school year herald a more serious, get-back-to-work mood, signaling the end of the lazy, sultry days of basking in the sun and sipping mai tais and mojitos.
The feeling changes as we age
For most under the age of 18, the end of summer is sad. It means back to school. When it’s university time, the feelings get a bit mixed – at that age, not everyone relishes summer as much and there’s a desire among many to get back to classes and your new friends.
Once you graduate and enter the real world, the end of summer takes on a whole different feeling. Sometimes it just blends into the rest of the year and you hardly notice the gradual change in temperature and feeling.
But for teachers and anyone involved in academia, the end of summer means the start of a new year. And that can be a bittersweet feeling.
For me, the end of summer also evokes some of the most powerful nostalgia.
[An excuse to share] Some very short stories
August 1986: the earliest end of summer story I can recall because it was so memorable: a cross-country American father-son road trip from our home in Tacoma, Washington to Jacksonville, Florida, a distance of some 2500 miles/4000 kilometers as the crow flies. And then an airplane to Spain.
A slightly traumatic ending to this summer: a forever farewell to all of my friends and the start of a new adventure and school year in Madrid.
A highlight from my trip: a stopover in Colorado to see my cousins and where I met a Native American girl named Summertime Snow. We swam together in a swimming pool. If I ever write a book, especially a piece of auto-fiction, I’m calling it I Swam in a Swimming Pool with Summertime Snow.
August 1989: a recurring theme: another traumatic end of summer story, but let’s not get too melodramatic. Growing up in a military family meant moving somewhere new every few years. This time it meant bye-bye Spain and hello Germany. But much like three years prior, this wasn’t your traditional end of summer/start of school situation. We had a month holiday in Miami to see my grandmother before heading to our next destination. That meant a bye bye to summer, a bye bye to more dear friends but a delayed hello to a new school year and an extended summer. Nice, eh?
August 1994: the start of university. That’s always a biggie.
August/September 1996: an odd one. I was in between my 2nd and 3rd years of university and I debated whether to go home – England at the time – for the summer. On the one hand, it was Euro ’96 and England were hosting it. I really wanted to be there for that. But on the other, I was studying at Tufts in Boston, and my girlfriend at the time was from just outside Boston, and I stayed around for the summer to be with her and get a better paying job.
And then she dumped my ass right at the start of summer. Thanks.
It turned out to be an okay summer. I made great money working as a waiter in a hotel (and met a few famous people). Went to some great concerts. Flew down to Atlanta for the Olympics where my good pal Andrew (of ‘Swell Trip Tape’ fame) was working. Met an Irish girl right at the end of August who I had high hopes for, but she wasn’t interested in me in the end (which I found out a couple of months later when I when to see her in Dublin).
An odd end of summer though, because I was spending my autumn term of my junior year in London, and the term didn’t start till late September. So another extended summer. Nice, eh?
August 1998: the first end of summer that never seemed to happen. I had graduated from university in May and started my new job early August. That goes down as a rather unmemorable, anti-climactic end of summer. It was the end of something much bigger.
August/September 2002: now we’re talking – it was time for an epic adventure.
The three end of summers from 1999 to 2001 meant something different. I was out in the real world, away from the cosy confines of academia, and the end of August meant moving day. All over the US, you’d see thousands of moving vans parked and double-parked and illegally parked outside apartments and houses all over the city because 31 August was when one-year apartment leases ended and it was time to move into a new place. It was usually chaotic and stressful.
In 2002 it was bye bye to the post-university working life and onto Edinburgh for my Master’s degree. But much like in 1996, the term didn’t start till late September/early October, so I had yet another extended summer.
This was one was very bittersweet: it was goodbye to a nearly 5-year relationship. I was going east to Scotland, she was going west to Arizona to do an MBA. We parted very amicably, and with hopes for a possible future together.
With over a month to kill before starting in Edinburgh, I set off on my first solo backpacking adventure: Prague-Krakow-Budapest-Zagreb-Dubrovnik-Split-Ljubjlana-Salzburg. It was also the first time I had a proper journal where I scribbled down my musings and shenanigans. It would pain me to read now, especially the absinthe-soaked night in Prague where I scrawled down God-knows-what in some probably indecipherable squiggles.
After the trip, I sent the journal to my girlfriend (ex?), in retrospect I’m not sure why. When I met up with her years later and asked whether she still had it, she had no idea what I was talking about.
Oh well. Like I said, I probably wouldn’t want to read any of that drivel. It’s far worse than the crap I write about now, if you can believe that.
Anyway, it was a fun trip.
August 2004: another anti-climactic one. I was working in Nigeria where there are just two seasons: dry and rainy. So the days are all pretty much the same during each season and I can’t recall what I was doing at the end of August, or even when the seasons changed. I’m sure it’s written down in my journal, which I still have but can’t be bothered to check. It was hot, probably. And maybe rainy.
August/September 2006: a particularly melancholy one. June 2006 was epic. I spent a couple of weeks with Andrew in Germany for the World Cup, attending a few matches, including two of Ukraine’s. (I had just finished my first year of teaching in Lviv, and just by chance Andrew and his friends ended up with tickets to two Ukraine matches, and I showed up with loads of Ukraine tops for us all to wear).
But then in early July, the weekend of the World Cup final and Zidane’s infamous head butt, my dear grandmother died in Belfast and the rest of the summer wasn’t exactly pleasant.
And my next teaching job was in San Sebastian, Basque Country, and the term was starting late September.
So at least it was another extended summer. Nice, eh?
August 2009: what I thought was the end of my teaching English ‘career’ as I left Kyrgyzstan and embarked on a new journey, the start of my secondary school teaching course. You can read all about that here:
August 2010: my arrival in Kyiv and what I thought would be a two-year stint. And here I am, some eleven years later.
Watch this
By far the best end of summer film to capture that fleeting feeling is 'Stand By Me', a film I’ve re-watched dozens of time and is always the most comforting film for this time of year. It’s a flawless masterpiece.
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