Late Summer Thoughts

Summer isn’t my favourite season.

For many people it is, and it’s not that I dislike it. I can see why it is so loved: the long days and warm weather, holidays and family time, the ease of slipping on a light dress instead of bundling into thermals, jumpers, tights, thick socks, and still more layers to go outdoors, only to feel too warm when I have to step inside somewhere. Gardens are full of flowers, and insects, and birds singing. Listing all these lovely things about summer almost has me changing my mind!

I think I like autumn the most. I love the golden light and the changing leaves, and the crispness in the air after summer’s heat comes as a relief. Christmas is still far enough away to shine on the horizon like a sparkly promise rather than a looming ball of stress. I love spring too, when everything is bursting into life again after the deadness of winter.

One of my struggles with summer is the heat, which we have had rather a lot this year. There’s also that sense of it being too much that I’ve mentioned before: too much light, too much heat, too much out of the ordinary, too many insects that think I am their dinner, too much noise, too much going on at the end of term when we’ve all had enough but there are things that need doing and we have to make the most of the nice weather.

As someone who loves autumn, you would think that I quite like August and early September. It is still summer, but it’s late summer now, with autumn already whispering at the edges. The horse chestnuts on one of my favourite lanes are shedding their leaves already. The evenings are drawing in, and it won’t be long before I’ll be marching people round to the scout hut in the dark again, and remembering to get the washing in before dinner. And yet, August feels a little sad.

Late summer is a particularly bittersweet time. There was a quote I read once that I can’t remember properly that said something about summer rolling over and starting to drift away. Towards the end it becomes clear that summer is slipping away. The feeling of it pulls at my heart strings. It’s not quite sadness, but more a kind of wistfulness. If I were Anne Shirley, I might describe it as “delicious,” because these feelings are not all bad. It’s the spirit of mono no aware , like wabi sabi: that there is a special kind of beauty in fleeting, transient things. We can enjoy them for a while, and then they are gone, and something else takes their place. August is like summer’s last sigh before she twirls her pretty dress of flowers and skips off into the sunset, high fiving autumn as she comes in to take her place.

It’s that mingling of both sorrow and sweetness, beauty and loss, a gentle pulling on our heart strings, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to feel that longing, that feeling of being in between things, stepping into the next season while still keeping one foot in the present one.

Some day soon, I’ll notice that the light has changed. I think it has already changed a bit as it’s not as harsh. The wheat field that I mentioned in July has been harvested and the bales are gone. Straw lies scattered with the horse chestnut leaves at the sides of the lane. The washing is taking longer to dry. It’s dark now when I go to bed, and when I rise in the small hours.

Sitting writing this in my favourite chair with the window is open I can hear the house martins chattering in their nest. Soon they will leave for Africa. It feels as though summer has only just begun and now it’s nearly over. Wistfulness, a sigh, before autumn arrives with her hot drinks, snuggly jumpers, and flame coloured leaves. Anne Shirley and the Irish rock band The Saw Doctors might seem like a peculiar combination, but they both carry that same wistfulness. These lyrics from Goodbye Again say it perfectly:

So here we are, we’re looking out to sea
Those waves will break long after you and me
When the swallows answer nature’s ancient call
Oh, I love the seasons turning most of all.

I truly believe that paying attention, even leaning into that delicious Anne Shirleyish ache, is one way we can slow down, be present, and resist rushing from one thing to the next until suddenly it’s Christmas again. It doesn’t take very much: a short walk, a few moments to stand and really see, a few lines of journaling (even in your head), or a small creative project when you have the energy.

That is why I created the Wild Blossom Companion. It is a quiet friend for when the world feels too loud, a gentle invitation to slow down, to notice, to find small joys in the everyday and rediscover a creative spark in what is around us. You can find out more here. And if you’d like to try it for free, I’ve made an edition called A Gentle Beginning, which follows the same format as the full Companion and can be used at any time of year. You can find out more about A Gentle Beginning here.