Very few summer-twilight evenings go by without a thought of playing hide-and-seek games decades ago. We grabbed every moment of fun out of the evening\u2019s dwindling daylight. We tried to trick each other by switching jackets and sweaters in the dusk in order to fool the one who was \u201cit\u201d in hide-and-seek into calling the wrong name of who was hiding where. Sometimes, it actually worked! This was our play with the light and dark. These evenings afforded primary lessons in getting the most out of each day and savoring the summer\u2019s light and the beckoning outdoors.<\/p>\n
Those small-town summer evenings in Western Pennsylvania \u2013 which friends and dear ones who grew up in cities have their own versions of \u2013 were delicious and seemed forever-lasting. In such hours \u2013 the long baseball games at the ballpark; the falling asleep after a swim, feeling the breeze while dreamily seeing the full-green leaves outside my bedroom window; the catching of worms during the evenings for bait we would use to fish the next day \u2013 the days felt never-ending. Nothing else existed outside of these moments. What we possessed was enough. This was summer abundance.<\/p>\n
As an adult, at times such moments have felt stolen from something else, some \u201csupposed to be doing\u201d thing. Yet isn\u2019t this precisely what the fullness of summertime is about? Here we are now, nine weeks past the summer solstice, just over four weeks until the autumnal equinox that we in the Northern Hemisphere see as a threshold to autumn. All around, in August, is the culmination of growth, the completion that started in the tiny buds, blossoms, and shoots of spring. The urgency of spring and early summer have settled into the lush, tall, and bursting late summer, whether in city parks, community gardens, or country fields.<\/p>\n
In Real Time<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The zenith of life and growth is in this moment. There\u2019s no making it stand still and stopping it from moving on, nor rushing it either; no putting off witnessing the abundance for another month. What isn\u2019t picked on the tomato vine will be lost, and so it is with time. The days call for us to be with the season\u2019s richness now.<\/p>\n
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