On showing up for a season you were not entirely rooting for, a summer well spent anyway, and the good work of turning toward what is coming.
August arrived the way it always does, quietly and all at once. One morning you look up and the light is different. Not fall yet, not by a long stretch. But something is shifting, and you can feel it the way you feel a conversation beginning to turn in the direction you have been hoping it would go for some time.
You already know I am not a summer person. I have made that case before and I will not belabor it here. What I will say is that this summer I kept my end of the bargain. I showed up. I found the things worth loving, and now, as August settles in, I find myself doing what I always do at this time of year: taking stock of what the season gave me and starting, quietly, to face the other direction.
We traveled, more than I expected and exactly as much as I needed. Pool days and beach days and board days on the lake in the early mornings when the water was still and the birds were the only noise and I could almost forgive the heat for existing. Barbecues and laughter and people around the table. And rainy afternoons that felt, honestly, like gifts. Mother Nature gave me permission to stay inside with a book, and I took it without a moment of guilt.
I also had a goal. One hundred miles, swimming and walking in the pool by summer’s end. I did not get there. Not even close, if I am being honest with you. But I showed up, and some weeks that is the whole thing. You try, you adjust, you keep going. There are worse lessons for a season you were not entirely rooting for.
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On the Particular Feeling of August
August is the month that asks a question. What did you do with your summer? Are you ready for what comes next?
It does not ask rudely or urgently, but with a certain firmness you cannot ignore. The season simply begins to shift the light, lower the sun a little earlier each evening, send that first cool morning in at six a.m. when you step outside with the dogs and feel, for just a moment, the seasons changing.
I think August carries an extra layer. We have been through so many autumns, so many Septembers that announced themselves with new beginnings and new chapters, that the turning is something we know in our bones. Even if it has been decades since we stood in a school supply aisle with a list, something in us still responds to August like a countdown. The body remembers even when the calendar looks nothing like it used to.
What I Did With My Summer
Back in May I made a summer list, twenty little things I hoped to do before the season turned. Some I checked off easily. Some I did in spirit if not exactly as written. A few I quietly let go. That, I have decided, is summer for a woman with a full life.
The travel was good. Each trip gave me something different: a new city, a familiar coastline, a family table that reminded me why you get in the car and go. I came home from each one a little fuller and a little more grateful for the ordinary days that were waiting.
The pool days were real ones, the kind that stretch from midmorning until you realize the whole afternoon has evaporated and you are sun-warmed, a little red, and pleasantly tired. Barbecues with smoke and laughter and the pleasure of eating outside when the food always tastes better than it would if eaten inside. Beach time. Board time on the lake in the early mornings, when the water was still and the birds were the only noise.
And the rainy days. I know people who complain about them, and I understand why, but I love a rainy summer afternoon the way I love an unexpected quiet hour. The whole world gives you permission. You do not have to be outside. You can make a pot of something and read and let the dogs stretch out on the cool brick floor and call it a day. Those afternoons were not lost time. They were the rest that made everything else possible.
As for the 100-mile challenge — swimming and walking in the pool — I did not get there. I want to say that right out loud rather than quietly skip over it, because one of the small freedoms of getting older is no longer needing to pretend. It was an ambitious goal. Some weeks I showed up and some weeks I did not. That is my summer in a nutshell.
The Work of Turning
We are not afraid of turning. Not women like us, who have been through so many of them. We know by now that what waits on the other side is not a loss but a change. And that change, when you lean into it rather than drag your feet against it, tends to give you things you did not know you needed.
But there is work to do first. Not the frantic kind, not the December scramble when you realize somehow you are already behind. The quiet kind. The kind where you sit for a few minutes with your morning cup and take honest stock.
What do you want this next season to feel like? Not look like. Feel like. That question is worth sitting with before the busy months sweep in and answer it for you.
September and October will arrive with their own momentum, school schedules, work calendars, and the holidays that start whispering in October whether you are ready or not. (I wrote about getting a head start back in July, if you want a running start.) The women who actually enjoy those months, who arrive at Thanksgiving without feeling as though they have already run a race, are the ones who used August to get quiet before the noise began.
A Few Things Worth Doing Before September
I am not going to hand you a to-do list. But a few things I find myself returning to, each year, at this particular turn.
Look at what you said yes to this summer and notice how it felt. The things that restored you are the things to protect. The things that depleted you are worth a second look before you say yes to them again out of habit.
Make room for one thing that is just yours. Not productive, not social, not useful to anyone else. A walk alone. An afternoon in the garden. A chapter in the middle of the day because you felt like it. August is generous with time in a way September never is. Use a little of it selfishly, in the best sense of the word.
Write something down. I am a journal person, and if you have been here for any length of time, you know this about me. But even if journaling has always sounded like something other people do, August is a good month to try it. Not to capture the summer before it ends. But because sitting with a question like what do I want to carry into fall, and writing the answer honestly, clarifies things that staying busy never can.
And if something on your summer list did not happen, let it go. The pool miles I did not swim are not following me into fall. Neither should yours.
What Is Coming
Fall is coming. I am not going to pretend I am sorry about that. Not even a little.
The light will change and the mornings will sharpen and the air will arrive one day with something in it that was not there the day before, a hint of the first fire of the season. Not dramatic. Not announced. Just different, the way the best things usually are. I have been waiting for that morning since approximately the middle of June, and I intend to stand in it for a good long while when it gets here.
But August is here right now, warm and a little wistful. There is something in the last stretch of any season that deserves attention. Not grief, not urgency. Just the willingness to be where you actually are while it lasts, even when where you actually are is warmer and more humid than you would like.
The turn is coming. For now, let’s stand in it together, at the end of something and the beginning of something else, knowing we have been here before and the next thing will be worth showing up for. October is on its way, it always is.
Tell me: what are you doing to prepare for the turn? Is there something you are making sure to finish before September arrives, or something you are already quietly planning for fall? I always want to know what you are thinking about at this time of year.
Have a beautiful day, friends. You can find me on Pinterest and Instagram. and Facebook, and I would love to have you along.
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