A summer night in 2019

Late summer is such a drowsy time. The season is cresting and heading downhill to autumn.

The back-to-school ads and commercials have started, but it's hard to take them seriously. All of August lies before us, a last blast of (hopefully) sun and lazy days of kids playing hoops in the street or zooming along the sidewalks on scooters. The fireflies stuck around 'til early July, kind of a rarity these years.

In my neck of Pittsburgh, the last day of July 2019 is hot, with towering clouds and a sky that looks ready to unload, yet again, cosmic buckets of rain. But so far, no showers. The bizarre weather manifests in a rainbow over thunder gray skies as I head home from meeting a friend on the North Shore.

(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

Home is drowsy, too. Filled with the murmuring hum of fridge and dehumidifier, the quiet tick-tock of a battery-powered clock. And, even though the windows are closed, I can still hear the steady burr of legions of crickets.

The dining room has a good view of the back yard and while I'm watching in the early evening, a hummingbird stops twice to fill up from the feeder.

I really love summer.

The photo is from June 21, the  summer solstice, at Randyland in Pittsburgh. A happy place.

Late July

(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

It's late Thursday, the third of three cool, dry days after a bucket-drenching rain on Monday in Pittsburgh. (I'm keeping track on my 2019 desk calendar, and 'bucket-drenching rain' is showing up a lot.)

A hummingbird just skimmed in front of my living room window and front screen door ... I'm puzzled because the lobelia is on one side of the house and the hummer feeder is on the back side, so not sure what that little guy was looking for. Except, now that I have seen this, my front porch pots next year definitely will not be papyrus.

I love June; it is so full of promise and goes by so fast. One phenomenon I've enjoyed this year, really late into the summer season is fireflies. They appeared in the back yard in mid- to late June and kept flashing into mid-July. We don't treat our lawns for anything, so maybe that's why. The back yard has a deep, dark slope and it is really magical seeing those golden firefly flickers late into the midsummer night.

Anyway, we are now almost at the end of July, when the season starts to end. I hate that I can already see September, and that back-to-school ads are popping up online and in print circulars.

One thing I've noticed over the years: Early summer is so quiet. By late July the crickets and katydids are doing their buzz and hum. That's how you know the season is changing.

The photo is of Stargazer lilies, at my mom's house. I think the vase is as pretty as the flowers.

Crickets, contrails

Isle sur La Sorgue, Provence, France.
Sept. 2012

In the back yard tonight, shady and cool, crickets kept up their diminishing chorus and above, planes, so far away, streamed silent across the blue, playing out slender threads of dissolving moisture behind.
I like fall. The light slants long and the leaves changing from green to gold and red bounce that ephemeral glow into the dusk.
Winter follows, with the sun's beams short and brief. That slanting light returns around February,  more blue than gold. You have to wait awhile for the crickets to come back, but I will settle for the sound of melting icicles on a bright March day.
I wish I wish that I could feel as renewed as the seasons every few months.

*

Tonight I watched "The Shawshank Redemption" for the umpteen millionth time. The scenes toward the end, when Red travels to the cornfield in Buxton and finds the long rock wall under the spreading oak, are some of the most beautiful ever put to film. The music, the cinematography, the light and the ambient symphony of locusts and birds, all capture so perfectly what it is to treasure a shimmering, drowsy, late summer day.

Owl, again

My neighbor Masha, a young native of Ukraine, met up with me a the 36A stop from Downtown to Mt. Lebanon late this afternoon.

She had been off for a few weeks for a trip to Paris with her husband and then on to Ukraine to visit her parents. We talked about her trip, (her first time to Paris and she adored it) and other things, including whether I had any book recommendations.

Sadly, having checked out Jayne Anne Phillips' "Lark and Termite," I could only report that I had started it a couple times and had been unable to finish. Not for lack of interest, but for lack of time. I returned it, overdue. I hope to get back to it someday.

When I am bereft of meaty reading material, and bereft of time, I return to old favorites that do not require a lot of concentration.

My "Peanuts" collection is a great source of non heavy-duty-brain-cell-sucking-energy-before-bedtime-reading-if-I-don't-have-anything-else-going-on reading. I love Charlie Brown!

I like to retreat, too, to old favorites. This week I have been re-reading "Owl," by William Service. It is a lovely story of a small wild creature, never a human pet, living its life within a human family.

I like it, in part, because I have been listening to the Owl(s) in the park by our house. Two weeks ago, at 3 a.m., I woke up (being past 50, that happens a lot). In fact, an owl woke me up, Who-Who-Who-Who-Who-ing. I crawled out of bed, poured some milk or wine, crawled back in and just listened for about a half hour in deep night.

Tonight, at dusk, the dogs and I went out for our evening walk. As we strolled in the gathering gray, Owl hooted and I spotted him, high up in the park canopy, a dark, distinctive shape in the fading light.

He hooted, his horned head bobbing forward and back, forward and back.

We stood below, me (at least) very attentive. He saw us; the tilt of that horned head changed and then wings extended and he flapped, slowly, away.

As we walked up the street out of the park, I listed to his call, and not much further away in the park soccer field, the hooting of parents cheering on their kids with calls of "good game."

And all the while in the background, the crickets chirred, really softly, marking the end of the season.

Life and art

Art.

You know it when you see it. You could "do" it too, if all it meant was splashing paint on a canvas that you called "untitled number 12."

Hard to teach. In fact, not teachable. It's only possible to send the artists down a path, or suggest one to them.

Life, experience, practice, repetition, experience (again) define the rest.

So, now that I am in art school classes for Web Design, I am at the beginning of art with people who could be my grandchildren.

After a long day (of noncreative activity) at work, another three hours of crowded class, here is my definition of art.

Sitting on the front porch. Watching the trees, black silhouettes against a deep grey sky. Listening to the sounds of the night. Crickets. A wind bringing rain. Breathing in and remembering that I have the control and the power (both such wrong words) to make my day(s) more creative and less reactive.

The trick is to remember that it is you, not the job, that, who, has value.

Summer night

I love the sounds of late summer.

Nights have been so cool and, oddly, the days seem to be getting shorter much earlier than normal.

Here's what I heard in Bird Park tonight and last night: Two owls, hooting at each other. Drowsy crickets. A blue jay, flapping above in the twilight, singing. Chirps and chatters all around.

Summer gets so quiet as it winds down. In fact, it matches the beginning of the season, quiet. Late June, July and through mid -August are the noisiest times of the season, but living creatures seem to know that as the light changes, the days grow short, as does their time as well.

Is there a human analogy? I think so. We all wind down and make less noise as our seasons on this planet circle to a close. But we pay so little attention to each other in these matters, so that when those near us are winding down, we are distracted, frustrated, rarely present to the moment.

Life is so busy, so stressful. I'm glad I have the chance, everyday, to walk outside and listen to the other creatures of the world going through the circles of their time here.

August, after

Thank you, Counting Crows, for the inspiration for the title of this post.

I love August.

The crickets and cicadas buzz and sing at night, having taken over the night air from the fireflies of June and July. The sun is moving lower in the sky and there is a sense of gathering in the world. A gathering of last enjoyments of summer -- even though the warm days will last another six to eight weeks or so. A gathering up in the mind of preparation for winter's dark months. A gathering up of all that has been enjoyed -- quiet talks at dusk, dogs snoozing on the summer lawn, the pleasures (and frustrations) of the summer garden, the sun on bare skin, the cool sparkle of a clear pool-- and the anticipation of enjoying it all again next year.

August.

I think the year should be counted by halves. March to August and September to February. It is a richer way of marking time, and more subtle too, than the artificial observance of a calendar year's passing.


A musical ending. Some years ago, my sister Suzanne presented Carl with a CD by Pete Yorn. It rested, unlistened to, for a while. We have recently pulled it out of the pile, and have been enjoying it so much. He has a new release coming out in September with Scarlett Johansson.

So, we're late to the party, but thanks Pete Yorn. "Music for the Morning After" is tremendous.