Summer's End
Come Labor Day, life slows dramatically in this Lake Michigan beach town. The neon vacancy sign at the nearby Bluewater Inn, dark since mid-June, already glows again on more nights than not, and the beach parking lot is filled with blowing sand instead of cars.
Growing up in Houston, summer bled all the way into October. Pumpkin patches and red and yellow leaves of fall were things I knew only from books and movies—as foreign to me as the sweaters and wool skirts national magazines called Back-to-School wear. But experiencing summer turn to fall here in Michigan, I get it. And don’t hate me Texas friends, but I feel it, too. Temperatures are already dropping—last night at an outdoor concert, I was grateful for the blanket draped across my lap—and the summer crowds have all gone home.
“Closed for the Season” signs are starting to show up, and the pace about town is a half-step slower. The beach is mostly empty, local apple trees are full, and pots of mums—one harbinger of fall I could do without—are everywhere. Hard to believe that so few days on the calendar bring such a noticeable change.
Change is on my horizon, too. The two-plus months I’ve spent in western Michigan, escaping at least a piece of Texas’s long, hot summer, are quickly coming to a close, so I need to spend as much time as I can soaking in this sliver of fall. Once back in Austin, there won’t be a need for blankets for quite a while. The Michigan apples we cart home will have to do while we wait.
Lagniappe:
A link to John Prine's "Summer's End." Take a listen . . . So filled with longing it will break your heart.
And to Shirley Jackson’s "The Summer People"—a short story about a couple who decide to extend their annual summer cottage stay past Labor Day. If you know Ms. Jackson, you can guess how it turns out.
Enjoy!
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