"Turn! Turn! Turn!"

Please don’t tell me that summer is almost over. You can say it, but I won’t listen. I’ll stick my fingers in my ears and loudly hum some Manfred Mann (kudos, if you get that reference). Okay, maybe I’ll be a tad more mature about about it than all that, but all this talk of summer’s ending and school's starting is starting to seep in, so I would appreciate it if everyone would just indulge me and pretend that summer is still going to continue for a few more months. I mean, technically, since going back to school is no longer part of my seasonal schedule, summer doesn’t really end for me yet. Most likely, the sunshine and warm temperatures will last until the end of September (maybe longer). But Chicago’s summertime events are all ending. The free concerts, outdoor movies, exercise classes at the park, etc. You name it, they’re all winding down. So, even if I can ignore the fact that a lot of my friends are kicking off the new school year (as teachers or as continuing grad students) and my young cousins are hopping back on yellow buses with book bags chock full of new school supplies, I can’t ignore the fact that Chicago says summer is ending, too.

It’s not that I don’t like fall. In fact, autumn is my favorite season. It’s a season of new beginnings (so many years of school have transferred my sense of new beginnings from spring to fall). The trees are beautiful, the temperatures are just right, fall fashions are my favorite of the year… But I guess I just feel like I got cheated this summer. While most of my reluctance to accept fall stems from the fact that events in my personal life made for a rather depressing summer, I think that a lot of people can empathize with a sense of being cheated out of much of summertime because the weather was so disappointing for the first half of the season (not to mention we had a ridiculously late spring, following a looong and frigid winter). I feel a desperate urge to cling to every ounce of sunshine we’ll get before the gloomy winter weather sets in. I mean, at least we have Christmastime, but each day of autumn will inch us closer to the doldrums of January, February, and March. (It made me cringe just to write those two sentences--sorry to bring up winter.) I feel myself facing that old familiar struggle with time. Where part of me wants to hold it back, while another part of me wants to race it forward, but inevitably I have no control whatsoever since I will never exist anyplace but the present, and the present will always belong to the progression of time.

So, I’m just going to hang out and try to squeeze every ounce of summer I can out of the final weeks of the season. I’m going to remember that autumn is inevitable, that it really is my favorite season, and that time heals all, so its advancement will only do me well. And finally, I’m going to do what I always do—investigate, gather information, and plan. After all, Chicago doesn’t stop providing a wealth of events and activities just because Labor Day hits. Every season holds something in which to find joy.