Ode to August

August may be my favorite month, although in truth, it’s really only the last couple weeks of August that I love. It just feels different. The sun is still hot enough to feel like summer, but there is the ever-so-slight hint of cooler, dryer air. The humidity of July is passing and it no longer feels soupy.

It’s quieter, too. Unlike the peepers of April and May, which are followed by the cicadas and then crickets in the hot, mid-summer nights, August is quieter. If you listen carefully in a field of sunflowers, you can hear the gentle, steady buzz of honeybees collecting pollen to make their winter provisions of sweet, golden amber. But it is very faint. My early morning walks are buoyed by the sound of bullfrogs.

August has its own color, too. No longer the lemon-yellow of summer and not quite the wheat-gold of fall, August seems to own mustard yellow, much like the Black-eyed Susans and Goldenrod that cover fields and flower gardens right now.

Maybe it’s the memory of our garden growing up, but the August air seems to smell of the impending harvest. Tomatoes, corn, squash, with the underpinnings of fertile soil dance through my senses. They carry the colors of fall with them, but also say, “not yet.” It’s like the earliest browning of fresh-baked bread that you know still needs more time, but it begins to beckon to your belly with the promise of the comforting, yeasty taste within.

In New Hampshire, the last two weeks of August were usually the only time the cold Atlantic Ocean was tolerable for a swim, too. I remember begging for one last trip before school would start so we could feel the sun and salt one more time and carry the memory with us into the new school year. New clothes, backpacks, notebooks, tanned skin and sun-bleached hair will give way to pumpkins, football games, and scarecrows. I will hang on to those memories as it gets colder and darker as winter begins to knock on the door. As a lifelong New Englander, I know to enjoy fall as long as I can because winter is coming; it always does. The blankets of snow and crisp night air will cover the corn fields and flowers. The tans will fade, and the beach toys will give way to holiday décor.

But not yet. For today, we can embrace the hot, dryer air and the beginnings of the harvest. We can give thanks for a few more barbeques and bonfires. And much like Dorothy said to the scarecrow, I will say to August, “I’ll miss you most of all.” Enjoy, my friends. Be brave. Be kind.