Suddenly, Last Summer

The Fourth of July week ended a couple of weeks ago.   The Fourth, the height of summer.   The thick of it.   Full tilt.  The Season!

It’s all wonderful and heady and fun but I heard things from people, both from regular customers at work and from people around town, that made me do a double take.

“How’s your summer been?”

“We’re leaving for the summer.”

“It’s been a great season.”

And the knife in my rose-tinted calendar, “See ya next year.”

Really?  Really?  Surely it can’t be.   And there I was, standing in front of Devon’s Sunday morning, watching my new customer/friend/neighbor pack his car, gather his neices and head back to New York.   Waves of very mild panic passed over me.

And like the tides that come and go, it is with many people.   They come for a week, two, even a month, then the inevitable happens and they pack up the car and drive up Cape or clutch the rolling suitcase and head down Commercial to the pier.

I let the panic pass with only the reassurance of the calendar which tells me I have a good two months of summer left.  Summer, not the rainy months of May and June.   Summer in all its glory.

But I know it will be a dark day in October when my car is packed and I turn down Route 6 and head south.  A dark day indeed.