Today is October 6th (where has the year gone?) which means we're firmly in the northern hemisphere’s autumn season. All you need to do is look around for the telltale signs that summer's done and autumn’s here; that is if you happen to reside sufficiently north of the equator to experience four distinct seasons, with the weather getting colder and the days getting shorter as the year comes to an end.
The signs are everywhere. You’ll see it in the trees, in how their leaves fade from green to orange, yellow or reddish brown. You’ll see it in the fallen leaves that waft through the crisp air or form soggy piles on muddy grounds. You’ll feel it in the single-digit temperatures and the cosy knitwear we don in response. And let's not forget the capitalist signals, like the pumpkin-flavoured beverages (which anachronistically seem to arrive earlier and earlier each year) and the spooky decorations and adornments that prime us for Halloween, to pave the way for the most elaborate tinsels, trinkets and trees. Needless to say, summer is all but a distant memory. And yet, here I am, writing a post about it and what it represents.
This time last year, I’d just written a song called Summer in September. As I recall, we’d had a rather wet July and August, so it felt like summer never truly settled in. Sure, there were a few warm days and some scorching hot ones too – at least two mini heat waves broke up the days-long torrential downpours – but still, it felt like we hadn’t had a proper summer season. When August gave way to September, I remember feeling like I’d been robbed of a summer season, of good, pleasant weather. And then it finally came. For a few days in September, the weather was just right. Not as hot as the scorching July sun, and not as chilly as the ember-months breeze, but somewhere in-between, with blue skies, gentle breezes, and just enough warmth. It was the perfect weather, that which I’d anticipated all along. It didn’t matter that my Goldilocks weather had come later than I’d expected, I remember feeling glad that it was here, and I enjoyed it while it lasted.
My friends, family and those close to me will know that I think about the seasons a lot, both in literal meteorological terms and as abstract representations of the stages we go through in life. If you’ve ever read what I’ve written or listened to my music, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I adopt seasonal metaphors in my creative work (see this blog post and this song), and I seize every opportunity I can find to explore feelings, emotions and ideas through this lens. Naturally, the mismatch between the months of the year and the meteorological conditions we experienced last year got me thinking about how we want certain things out of life at specific moments in time, but forget (or fail to realise) that some things are out of our control. We may make our plans and strive to meet our goals, but life has its plans, and we don’t get to dictate the timelines. In other words, we may expect summer in July and August, but life may give us summer in September instead.
I didn’t get much of a chance to play it live last year because, having written this “summer” song at the end of September, things moved on quite quickly (as tends to be the case this time of year) so it felt odd and out of place singing it at Halloween- and festive-themed events. But that didn’t faze me. I knew summer and September would both come around again (either together or one after the other), and I’d have the chance to play the song and tell this little story. They did (come around) and I did (play the song and tell the story). Just the other day I played the song as part of a full set at a gig where I was opening for an artist from upstate New York. It was a lovely gig all around, but the song got a particularly good reception and feedback. The musician I opened for said it had a nice jazzy feel to it, and a gig-goer in the audience told me at the end of the night that it felt like a hybrid of a Johnny Mercer and Stevie Wonder song, which is a huge compliment in my book.
Summer in September is a timely reminder that we can only do what we can (as we should), but stay abreast of the fact that time and chance happen to us all. I’ll have more to say on this next week, unless of course life has other plans, that is.
P.S.: My debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, and my middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.