Summer nights and long warm days

Are stolen as the old moon falls

And my mirror shows another face

Another place to hide it all

Another place to hide it all

Chris Cornell

These are the two days in the year where the outside world’s automatic transitions really capture the bulk of my attention. While indeed, the Right now, everything is super sharp in its clarity, and the ephemeral nature of all things seems to be in the sharpest of focus. Yes, the man-made act of repositioning time markers wields an impressive sway on my mentality, but on the whole, it’s the low slant of sunlight. It’s the steadily disrobing trees— the ones with leaves that drop faster than I have the time to enjoy their auburn beauty. And it’s indeed the unpredictable gusts of weather that pull the rest of everything down to the ground before they’re good and ready. The skinny branches littering the streets. The expansive green leaves that, given a bit longer of a chance, perhaps would have had the chance to ease into winter. But that’s not how this time of the year works. It’s more like you are given two days where you sit up and realize that the seasons are changing before your very eyes.

I had a professor in college who once declared that, “everyone went silently insane the first week that daylight savings ended”.  It was an exaggeration of course, but I could appreciate where she was coming from. This time of the year is disorienting– especially when you live in a place with a change in the seasons that is highly perceptible to your senses. 

Here it’s mostly the light and how it’s reflected across the sky. Even on the most pleasant of days, I get the sense that it’s a ceiling that is being lowered. Imperceptible to the naked eye, but surely it has to be the reason the trees are losing their leaves. Some sense that everything in its own time is being moved down into the ground. Suddenly undeniably closer to a point of transition. This is what my brain is thinking about during these two days in particular. 

During that same college year, I had another professor who had us read the Irish epic, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, and from there we learned about the four main Celtic festivals each year. It was Samhain, the one starting on the night of 31 October is Samhain, where the text’s main battle began. In the Celtic tradition, Samhain is also the moment where the line between the living and the dead is thinned. It’s the strange and tradition-endorsed sense that significant and disquieting things happen during these particular days of each year.

This weekend I bought a pumpkin at the supermarket. Italy’s caught on quickly to the more cartoon-flavored Halloween celebrations, and as such, there are decorations, costumes and sweets to be had. “Dolcetto o scherzetto” is the Italian way to say “Trick-or-Treat”…and while I do not anticipate any little kids coming knocking at my door on Hallowe’en, I did, however, purchase a pumpkin from the produce section. I do it because for me, it’s tradition. An enjoyable way to get my head in gear and accept that those long summer days are good for good. 

Except my pumpkin is already rotting—even though I only bought it two days ago. It’s a bit disappointing, but it’s another reminder of where we are. Life, on any good day has us bunking with death. But again it’s this particular experience in the viewfinder that makes everything feel extra ephemeral. Even my pumpkin might not last before I’m ready to truly appreciate it.

I know in a very short space of time that my mind will have adjusted to the reality of dark skies at 6pm and the wind blowing hard outside of my home. But right now I am picking up on all of these things. I think back to living in Dublin and London and recalling how the skies would start to suddenly grow a bit dark at 3:45pm. I would think, “Oh no.”  That’s what this time of year does to a person. That’s why I completely get why Samhain, Hallowe’en, All Soul’s Day, heck just arriving at November first….all of it feels like quite the speed bump.

It won’t take too long before I learn to deal with the slanty sun light—the kind that will endeavor to shine in my eyes for as long as the day is bright. I will forget that this transition occurred while I get busy with life-generated tasks that may or may not mean anything at all. The distraction that is existence in our modern world. But I like to remind myself that there is beauty in this very short window of time right now. Things are ephemeral and the world is always changing. I will also try to remind myself that I only have so many of these seasons left to bear witness to. And whatever that number is, I can’t be sure. 

When I saw a coworker today, I asked him how his weekend was. He told me that it was good, except that he lost his 90+ year old grandmother. He said it was okay, she’d had lived a good and long life. Here being Monday, this grandmother had already been mourned and buried. I offered him my condolences, noting that while nine decades is a real luxury of an existence, this end no less significant. To quote another professor of mine (paraphrasing another sacred text), “we know not the hour”.  Markers in the passage of time—especially our personal passages of time—are important. But in the end, it’s just a matter of seasons. And the key, especially during these more bittersweet moments, is trying to be present during each one. As the seasons roll on by.