Summer blues
There is a month left of summer, and yet things are changing, shifting, time is slipping so I am listing all things summer to keep enjoying until autumn falls.
I had my baby a week ago, hormones are running high but I always have felt this way about seasons changing, about chapters coming to an end, pages turning. Since I was a kid, feeling the air turning colder, the sun setting earlier, a new school year creeping in. Not sad, but yet moved by time moving so fast, especially after the slow weeks of summer.
I had my baby a week ago, my eldest is starting school next week, my pregnancy is past and summer is slowly leaving. This feeling of time slipping through my eyelids, escaping the grasp of my fingers is overwhelming, so is the love I feel for my life. Maybe this is why my eyes fill with tears, because as my baby sleeps in her muslin, my eldest plays in the field, apples collected lined up on the fence, my partner smile.
Maybe this is saudade. This feeling of longing, happy something happened, sad it will never happen again. A word I have tattooed in my flesh, a feeling engraved in my soul and heightened by the experience of becoming a mama again.
Time passing is bittersweet. How lucky am I to get to live all this. How lucky to be alive? And yet it goes so fast and never comes back. Every little moment is here and gone, which makes it precious, and I want it forever in my mind.
Here is a list, à la Prévert, of my summer. Summer blues, summer joys.
The tomatoes slowly reddening in the allotment, my daughter’s windchime on her play house, after-dinner water fights in the golden light of the sun slowly setting way past bedtime.
The heat lingering as the moon climbs up, curtains drawn in the day to keep away from the glaring sunlight. Early mornings bird chorus, dawn songs. The chimes of the ice cream van on Thursdays and running barefoot to grab a cone. Opening the doors on a rare rainy day to inhale the smell of a summer shower.
The weight of my heavy belly as I waddle up the hill, softness of my cotton dress on my skin. A little hand in mine, chatting as we walk to the park. Ending the afternoon paddling in the river, looking for special stones, starting the day opening all the windows to cool the house before the sun is high.
The baby kicking as I fall asleep, napping with the sweet sound of my daughter playing. Crunchiness of radishes late at night, juicy tomato’s eaten like sweet as we hush at our plentiful garden. The chlorine smell after a morning at the pool, and the neighbour’s barbecue.
Midwife appointments and the drive through a film-scenery landscape. Knowing the time is nearing and wondering who is this baby. Celebrating 4 trips around the sun for my first baby, basking in the love of friends and family.
Late dinner Al fresco, homemade pesto and the smell of fresh basil. Trying to work out the shade of the parasol, looking up to the stars. Belly contracting days shortening, heat lingering. Summer dresses, barefoot life. Long breakfasts, picnics, Polaroids to capture the moment.
Giving birth, cuddling my newborn, looking at the pouring rain, listening to my eldest, filled with summer, heart content.
I’ll bake an apple and blackberry crumble and roll into autumn sipping on it. Life is beautiful.
With love,
Cloe