That's Why They Fall It the Blues

Why is it that every year I’m left bereft by the end of summer? Maybe it’s because I live in Vermont where summers can be exquisite. Its emerald and malachite greens dazzling against a sky so blue it ignites not just the possibility, but the full-out expectation of freedom. A freedom flavored by remnant feelings of childhood when the close of school left the door wide-open to the prospects of summer.  

Perhaps my dismay at summer’s demise is due to my lack of attention to it while it was here. This from a woman who owns two copies of “The Power of Now.” I have to admit, it takes me a while to find the groove of summer. Sorry, Eckhart.


Every year, I’m late to the summer party. It takes months for me to notice it’s warm enough to bare my arms let alone gather outside with my neighbors to toast pinkish sunsets as someone invariably intones, “red skies at night….”

By the time the end of August rounds the bend, I’m thinking of picnics and firing up the grill only to look up at my calendar and read September. It’s then I realize I missed the fair. Or, more accurately, the fried dough. I’m crestfallen. 

Please understand, without reservation, I emphatically know a Vermont September is also exquisite. One could even argue it’s worth an entire summer of beauty. Nonetheless, I’m sad summer has passed, sad to say goodbye.

It seems once I’ve fully absorbed summer is indeed over, it’s October. Oh no, did I miss September too? Trust me, I’m not one to spend time longing for the past, believing that the grass is always greener elsewhere. Although, in this case, that would be true. Yet, I still feel whiplashed into fall. No ignoring it now, it’s everywhere I look. My petunias have called it a day, it’s dark by dinner and maple leaves carpet the sidewalk. Today, I picked up an unbelievably garnet-red leaf and tucked it safely into the pocket of the coat I now need to wear. It’s as if I’ve been awakened by a venerable voice booming, “Earth to Carole” as I stare at autumn all around me.

Our Vermont summer, that’s a carrot to sub-zero temps in winter and rutted roads in mud season, is fleeting. But only because all time is just that. Here today, gone tomorrow. Tempus fugit, waiting for no one, it flies. Summer’s not to blame for this truth. At the end of the day, it’s my job to pay attention and to be with it while it’s here. No matter how transient. 

This explains my sadness at summer’s departure as it provokes my propensity to contemplate the profoundness of loss. A circle of life that mandates things come and things go. Seasons come and seasons go. And really, the crux of the whole matter, people come and people go. Seems to make sense the transitory nature of seasons could bring about the blues. The kind that expresses feelings in equal rhythm and measure of sorrow and prayer.

I’m quite sure that my heavy-heartedness of spirit will continue into November. And that’s not because Vermont doesn’t have its charms then too. The eleventh month offers more hues of gray than one can imagine, no kidding, with trees that boast a nobility unseen while wearing their crown of leaves. No, my pensive mood is inflamed by November’s upcoming election and a fear that our country has lost its way. I hold the hope that the month of Thanksgiving will end in optimism and aspiration. 

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to embrace my melancholy over the loss of summer and, mostly, all the other losses I feel deeply. Just like the passing of seasons, there’s a purpose to my sadness. A time for it as well. May there also be, as The Byrds sang, “A time for peace. I swear it's not too late.”