It’s August, and the air is heavy with summer. Literally heavy, with 93% humidity this morning, making the midday air feel like 41C (105 F for my American friends). There is something about the late-summer heaviness that both propels and slows me, a strange paradox. The slowing down to enjoy the season we’re in, and the ever-present awareness of another season approaching.

These are the days that I’m anxious to get out to the garden in the morning and stand bare-footed on dewy grass, to feed my flowers (because we’ve reached the stage that everything needs a bit of extra nourishment and starts to get a bit spindly), to spend a Saturday capturing the essence of summer by canning peaches that we’ll enjoy mid-winter, to paint furniture, to clear out corners of clutter in our house. It’s also a time where I want to stay close to home, to slow life’s pace a touch, to read, to cook (or not cook, because I’m melting), to take an extra-long weekend here and there. It’s a sort of midsummer nesting, a couple months later than the normal fling-the-windows-open spring-cleaning and the fall pumpkin-muffin-baking-spree varieties.

These days are good. The extra barometric pressure makes my joints swell and ache a bit, reminding me of my weekend-warrior habits, but I still want to move. I want to take every minute of these days and make them count. I want to listen to my daughter tell stories with the words we’ve worked so very hard for her to articulate. I’m almost teary with the relief of hearing her voice articulate things I didn’t fully realize I was missing out on. I want to sit on the deck and notice sunsets and not forget summer, because in 4 short weeks my sweet girl starts school for the very first time and we’ll be in a whole new season, ready or not. I don’t want these days to end.

And this next season, it’s already looking full. My calendar for September and October show meetings, work, events, travel, and shorter, more jam-packed workdays to accommodate my mama life. To be honest, those are the things that make me start to shallow breathe a bit, feeling the weight of them already heavy on my shoulders, while I am still determined to soak in the rest of the deliciously less demanding summer. I used to thrive on the demands, but in this life season, I feel the need to manage them, rather than serve them. 

So, my over diligent self-wonders, how do I get ready for it? How do I look ahead to September with joy? In a way, slowing down when panic could easily set in and tell us to hustle harder is how we prepare for the next season, isn’t it? 

It’s the deliberate deep-breathing, being okay with feeding my family frozen pizza and bagged salad for supper so that we can do other things, and trying not to think too much about what in the world I’m going to pack for kindergarten lunches and snacks. It’s looking at the weekends remaining on the calendar and thinking about how we can pack them with joy instead of worry about how they’re dwindling. It’s faith instead of fear, really, because in many ways I fear losing the warm days, the less regimented days of toddler-hood, the increase of things to balance, the new season that holds so much of the unknown. 

Here’s the thing I’m holding on to; the seasons are a mercy. One of my favourite hymns reminds me that His faithfulness is great in each one of these seasons.

Summer and Winter

Springtime and harvest

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join in all nature in manifold witness

To thy great faithfulness

Mercy and love 

So, as the days get shorter and nature witnesses to us that, just as it always has, fall will come, we’ll settle into new rhythms. This new season won’t be easy, but it will be good, ordained, and a season in which we’ll see God’s great faithfulness, His love and such mercy. That weighty humidity will lift, and the leaves will fall and we will enjoy pumpkin lattes.

In the meanwhile, I’m going to do my best to enjoy this season we’re in, friend (and drink lots of water – it’s hot out there). I wish you could all join me on my deck on a summer evening, just drinking the joy of this season in. Praying you find your spot, wherever you are, to do just that.

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