The Last Week of Summer
Let go or be dragged
Hopefully you have a pool day planned as there are only five days left in The Last Week of Summer. Maybe you have noticed the cooler temps, the open windows, the cricket symphony. If you haven’t I’m sure you’ve heard someone talking (or writing) about it with the slightest twinge of panic in their voice.
This is The Last Week before we hit a transition of seasons. A period met with a lil anxiety, a lil restlessness, a lil anticipation. Kind of like being in the wave pool. Some waves are fine, you expect them, you are in the wave pool. But better look alive, there’s always a chance a rogue one will catch you off guard and then you have water up the nose.
In traditional Chinese medicine the gap between now and fall is called Late Summer or Earth Season. It centers on the stomach and spleen, our organs that process emotions linked to what could be seen as seasonal stress.
Change is sometimes hard to metabolize. We’ve been taught the unknown is mostly something to fear. But with the right filter, we could make Earth Season cutesy. EVERYTHING IS FINE.
I’d say chances are pretty high “Late Summer” becomes a co-opted vibe everyone talks about just like The Last Week of Summer. I’ve already seen it on three Substacks. (I loved this one on fall not-shopping) We couldn’t just have The Last Week and then NOTHING for our main character to do. It’s much more demure and mindful to be effortlessly sipping a latte (chai) after a morning jog (Alo).
In recent years it seems like summer has been more fleeting which is maybe why we’ve started to put markers to it. It’s The Last, so there’s no more. You’d better be appreciating it, better be actively active in it. Making everything an adventure. Making everything a tomato sandwich. This concept of enjoying it before it’s gone is especially triggering for me as the girl who would only use her expensive Neutrogena shampoo from Santa on special occasions. The same girl who left an entire box of chocolate-covered Godiva strawberries from her boyfriend rot in the fridge “saving” them for the right moment worthy of such a delicacy.
Labeling The Last Week of Summer is also in some ways just our dumb human brain’s attempt to control it. The pressure builds as the sun sets (EARLIER). If memory serves (unclear) it stays warm-ish through September thanks to the climate crisis. Nature just does her thing in the background, slowly powering down. It has always been like this, why are we all of a sudden so worked up about it?
Right now all my mom friends are running on fumes as New York kids don’t return to school until next month. Camps are done, patience is thin, and this week these gals are either on a Family Vacation or piecing together the days with episodes of Bluey, trips to Target and refined sugar.
Florida kids have been back to school for weeks, possibly because they wouldn’t survive outdoors otherwise. Down South the shift of seasons isn’t as noticeable. Temps don’t start to drop until December if you’re lucky. A palm tree still looks like a palm tree whether you’re in July or October.
For me The Last Week of Summer happens to coincide with my birthday. In therapy last tonight I completely forgot my age even though I am very aware of my age. I disassociate as I look up last year’s intentions wondering if anything has changed healed. Time is a construct, I tell myself. There’s a learning curve, my therapist coos.
If you think about it we are encountering newness all the time. Whether lucid or not stuff’s composting, we make decisions based on what we know at that moment. We plan and manifest, but that wave pool is on a loop my dudes. Really all we can do is sync to the rhythm, steady ourselves.
The current sky’s astrology speaks on themes of balance, equality, harmony, and disharmony. Mercury stations direct. Uranus stations retrograde. So while a lot is getting churned up and “reviewed” as they say, a lot is also clearing out. It’s a liminal time to make space for new ways of thinking, ways of working, ways of being. One could argue more alignment with who you really are, will be, and always have been.
I’ve been writing this entry for two days which is a long time for me to work on a Substack “letter” as the fiends are now calling it. I’ve reorganized my points. Gone on, then deleted tangents about how my mind is chorus of voices cheering me on, tearing me down, questioning everything, making excuses, giving thanks giving thanks giving thanks.
This is enough for now.
It’s The Last Week of Summer after all.
Relating to the challenge of when it’s special enough to eat chocolate strawberries.
It's not over 'til it ices over is my belief. Summer until at least halloween ;)