Summerfall breeze makes me feel finesad

Labor Day marks a traditional end to what people think of as summer and this, rather than mid-July or the dog days of August, is when I get the summertime blues. I get blue because it's all over. Summer vacations have been taken, temperatures begin to cool, the baseball season begins its ending and the football season begins its beginning. Now is the time of summerfall, not summer anymore, not quite fall.

I actually noticed signs of summerfall a week before Labor Day. The sun was still bright but I perceived a slight fade in the brightness. The air was still hot and humid but there was a coolness in the breeze, even on days when the temperature was in the 90s. And the leaves began to fall. Where these brown, dried leaves were coming from, I don't know. Leaves on the trees were still green so maybe these guys were in hiding since last year, waiting for the right moment to pounce and let everyone know the season of melancholy was near, if not quite here.

And autumn is definitely a melancholy season. Summer is dying or dead and the complete stillness of winter lies before us, lurking about in chill winds and errant snowflakes, snowflakes that drop through the skies individually here and there, harbingers of future white storms. We try to keep the heat of summer inside us, but by the end of November it's gone, baby. The sunlight becomes pale, a wan shadow of its summer self and the trees are bare and entering their dormancy until next spring arrives.

There are, however, joys to look forward to. Big Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas visits from Santa, walks in the forest preserves with a fresh blanket of snow on the ground and a winter sun making everything bright.

I guess there is joy to be found in every season. Don't even get me started on spring...