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From Under a Midland Sky

“Here, August Is”

Copyright 2008, Thomas Dean

Here, August is fullness.  Our backyard tomato plants overflow with red, juicy abundance. The zucchini multiply out of control; neighbors and coworkers avoid looking at us when we approach with an armload to share. The farmer’s market tables seem to be sprouting their own green largesse, there is so much harvest.  Tables and trucks full of Muscatine melons pop up on street corners. Corn and soybean fields seem to be sinking under their own rich greenness.

Here, August is emptiness. Stores’ garden centers display wilting leftovers, ever-shrinking piles of bags of topsoil, mulch, and composted manure.  Retail shelves are cleared of swimming pool accessories, red-white-and-blue flags, and picnic supplies.  Should we plant fall spinach in that garden spot barren of thick leafy green since early summer?

Here, August is thickness. Summer’s humidity plops in lassitude over our Midwest, the saturated air almost dank. We worry it will never leave.  We tire and slow as we slog through the oppressive mustiness. The swimming pool’s water almost seems to slow, too.  Did someone put a little bit of gelatin in there?

 Here, August is nascent thinness. The raspberry bushes, while they deliver sweet red fruit, show gaps in their branches as they begin to droop toward winter’s rest.  The pepper plants’ leaves are past their shiny vibrancy. The lawn slows its manic growth, the tiny green spikes losing their muscle tone in middle age.  In our backyard prairie patch, the fat purple of beardtongue has given way to the delicate laciness of white aster.

 Here, August is crisp and sweet.  Huge watermelons are jailed in big wooden bins in the middle of the air-conditioned grocery store floor, ready to be sprung to give us a little summer sparkle as we slice the thick green hide and shove dark pink sweetness into our mouths. Juice trickles down our chin as we spit the seeds. Sugary corn cobs, eager to be baptized by creamy pats of butter, burst from hairy green blankets ready to be ripped off in squeaky splendor.

 Here, August is quiet.  July’s firecrackers are silenced. The frog in the creek near our house has given up its nightly song. Grasshoppers in tall grass click and buzz only occasionally. Last-chance vacations create empty homes throughout our neighborhoods. In our university town, even the summer students are gone. Downtown rests.

 Here, August is stale boredom.  We’re a little tired of the guilty-pleasure books we’ve been reading.  We’ve been to Lake Macbride a hundred times already.  The summer movie blockbusters are now all long in the tooth, and the theatre’s bill of new fare is underwhelming. Weeding the garden—again—is a dreaded chore rather than a welcome act of stewardship.

 Here, August is cool-tinged.  Moments flit by, in early morning or late at night, when a chilly crispness breaks through the warm, sticky atmosphere.  Once in a while, when I let the dogs out at night, I think maybe a light jacket would have been a good idea.

 Here, August is darkening.  I suddenly notice that 8:00 p.m. is more black than dusky. Fewer bicycles crisscross the sidewalk and street in front of our house in mid-evening. The fingers of late-evening light through the windows, which have inspired our kids’ complaints that it can’t be bedtime as long as there’s still light, slowly disappear.

 Here, August is disappointment. Endless time has turned to missed opportunity. The exercise regime has dissipated.  The progress on writing the new book has fallen short.  The garage has not in fact, finally, this year, been cleaned.

 Here, August is anticipation. We realize there is now something to pick at Wilson’s Apple Orchard, a preview of September’s bounty.  As we travel there on Highway 1 toward Solon, we see a farmer tuning up the combine. Now and then I notice a hint of yellow on the margins of trees. As my kids and I ride our bikes through the Lucas Elementary playground and parking lots, we notice a few cars on the grounds, and a few teachers inside sprucing up classrooms.  These seismic hints tell us life will change drastically in a few weeks.

 Here, August is special.  August is moments of revel and moments of sloth.  August is endings.  August is transitions, as are all moments of life.  Here, August is part of where we are.  Here, August is part of who we are.