As I write, I’m distressingly aware of long shadows as the low-lying morning sun moves around to the South, the signature of the last days of summer. It’s likely that we’ll have quite a few warm---even hot---days in September, but they won’t carry the bright promise of long summer evenings when you delay as long as possible coming indoors, putting out the lights and going to bed.
Weather makes the season, regardless of what the calendar says. Here in the Midwest, we can have heartbreaking cold in late May, or a heat wave in October. And as every traveler knows, weather is one of the principal variables affecting the enjoyment of travel, regardless of the season. Heading for the sun during the northern winters, you count on good weather at your destination---if you can get off the ground at the airport at home. Many’s the time I’ve been unable to get out of Chicago on schedule because of winter storms.
Ordinarily, I enjoy all kinds of weather, winter as well as summer, as soon as I accept the fact that it is going to be winter, and the four inches of snow I wake up to is no aberration. Many people I know relish springs and falls, but thanks to either global warming or long-term weather trends, we’ve lost our spring in the Midwest. It’s become a time when winter lingers in a state of approaching demise but with occasional rallies as if to say, “I ain’t dead yet.”
But as compensation, fall has become a glorious time of year hereabouts, with clear, sunny days, leaves clinging longer to the trees and crisp nights, when crawling into bed under a light down comforter is the essence of pleasure.
The trouble with fall, though, is that you know the lovely sunshine and warmth are just teasing you. They’re trying to get you to smile and close your eyes so they can hit you in the face with a massive snowball. The mantra of fall is, “One more day; one more day.”
All in all, though, I guess we have to admit, as Mark Twain said, one of the brightest gems in the weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it all.
If you’d like to share any weather stories with us, please do.
Paula “Break Out the Boots” Gifford