Written by J. Mitchell Brown
just wanted to write you a quick letter to bid you adieu and to explain why I’m digging everything up in my yard that we’ve worked so hard together to get to grow.
Summer, You’ve been a good summer, a fun summer. There were sandbar days and fishing trips. There were golf cart rides and bicycle rides. We tried a few new recipes of light and refreshing foods and drinks. There was the Great Scalloping Weekend down in Steinhatchee. There were some midnight swims in the river, lots of laughter and friendships. There were festivals and parties. The kids, while very young, know you and what you are about and love you for it.
You’ve been a very good summer, indeed.
But now the sun is hanging lower in the sky in the afternoons and taking its own sweet time coming up in the mornings. The evenings have turned consistently comfortable enough for me to sleep out on the porch with the down comforter on me rather than just the flimsy bed sheet. I built a fire pit along the bluff of the cove to charcoal grill on, and have been eating more of my meals outside.
It also happens to be that time of year when everything in my yard looks a lot like I feel right now: simply worn out and tired.
Summer, I couldn’t have a pretty yard every year if it wasn’t for you and your plentiful sunlight and refreshing rains. But at the same time, I don’t know that you understand the power that you have over my garden.
Your heat, while moderate this year, has nonetheless whooped up on my plants. My gardens and grass have given up on giving their all for my enjoyment. The cove lilies (they have some other name, but I don’t know what it is...I’ve always just heard them called cove lilies) are all leaning over at fatigued angles, spending the last of their energy on one more round of blooms. The crepe myrtle, which just recently had a trillion snow white blossoms on it, is now raining little brown paper bags all over the yard. And the coleuses (and yes, Summer, the plural of “coleus” is “coleuses”...I had to look it up) begin their mornings with their heads held high, but are earlier and earlier giving up on standing tall and are slumped and wilted long before lunchtime each day.
As you know, Summer, I generally take a vacation around this time of year, and this year is no exception. In a week or so, like nearly every year for the past 36, I will be sitting on the shelly sands of Edisto Beach, Pat Conroy’s book in one hand and a cocktail in the other. I will spend a week decompressing, evaluating and taking stock of my life, planning and dreaming of where I will go next in my life’s journey. I will return enlightened, refreshed, ready to welcome fall and winter with open arms.
And like every year before I go on that vacation, and like the cove lilies that have exhausted themselves completely before their winter nap, I will spend the last of my summer energy cleaning my slate so that I have nothing lingering over and waiting on me upon my return, including you. (I don’t mean to sound rude, Summer, but we both knew this day was coming.)
A couple of days before I depart, I will turn into a madman and dig up, destroy, or cover up anything in my yard that is spent and no longer belongs (and that you haven’t already killed). I will trim the heads off my daylilies will cut the cove lilies to the ground. I will pull the coleuses up and throw their spent bodies onto my compost pile so that they may give of themselves next growing season by manner of nutrient-rich soil. I will eradicate my weeds, mow my grass, and put a fresh layer of mulch and pine straw over everything. There are the morning glory vines that need to be pulled, jasmine that needs to be trained and kudzu taters that need to be pinpointed and dug up.
I don’t want you to think I’m tired of you, Summer. It’s just that if I left all of my stuff out for you to mess with while I am on vacation, my yard would be an absolute travesty when I got home.
As it is, when I get done, my yard will look boring and bland, like a dance floor with nobody on it, especially since I gave up on my cassia tree which was originally planted to be a blast of winter color in my yard (by the way, Summer...you got the best of that thing early in your time...way back in May, which is technically still Spring...but I won’t tell her.)
But in its own strange way, Summer, my yard will also be inviting. I will come back from my vacation to a clean and simple home, no clutter and distractions to immediately throw me back into the tailspin I am in the weeks before going to Edisto. I will have a clean canvas, so to say, with which to work. And calmly, methodically, I can begin planning and dreaming of Spring 2010, which is right around the corner anyway.
So goodbye, Summer of 2009. You have been good to me. I have loved you and enjoyed you more than you know. Thank you for the memories, the temperate weather, and a lifetime of smiles. I long for your return in 2010.
And hello, Fall and Winter...let’s bring on the oysters.
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