"Farewell, Summer. Here it is. October 1st. Temperature's 82. Season just won't let go. The leaves won't turn." from Farewell, Summer by Ray Bradbury
I read Farewell Summer on the last day of summer.
My electric company had sent me a warning email that my bill would be twice as high as last month's. We had been running the air conditioner for weeks because of the high humidity and 90-degree weather, accompanied by thunderstorms. The bees were visiting the Sedum Autumn Joy since most of the other flowers had gone, except the roses which are still blooming their hearts out.
But a few days later as I write this post the change has come. We expect our first frost. The apple tree has some yellowing leaves. I left my window open last night but pulled my quilt up to my chin. The house was chilled this morning. Farewell, Summer.
If only life were only about the changing of the seasons, but with the change comes the recognition that life is moving on, the months are ticking off another year. I am growing old. I tried to hang onto youth, like Doug and Tom in Bradbury's fictional Illinois town, resentful and obstinate, sure I would never grow old. I would die first. Instead, I turned sixteen and suddenly I was married and then I was old.
A sequel to Dandelion Wine, written 55 years later, Bradbury returns to childhood's grappling with the awareness that comes after age nine, the knowledge that we grow old and die. Doug and Tom go to war with the old men. They think they know how the old men control the boys' destiny so they become men. Steal the chess pieces! Break the clock!
Couched in the language of war, the last chapter is Appomatix. Mr. Quartermain, the old man who resented the boys, and Doug who waged war on the old men sit down together.
"What is it you want to know?" Quartermain asks Doug.
"Everything," said Douglas.
"Everything?" Quartermain laughed gently. "That'll take at least ten minutes."
"How about something?" asked Douglas finally.
"Something? One special thing? Why, Doug, that will take a lifetime. I've been at it a while. Everything rolls off my tongue, easy as pie. But something! Something! I get lockjaw just trying to define it. So let's talk about everything instead, for now."
I was so blown away by the writing, the word choice, the insights, I could have highlighted pages of favorites sentences. For #SundaySentence hosted on Twitter by author and 'book evangelist' David Abrams, I shared this lovely quote:
Grandpa's library was a fine dark place bricked with books, so anything could happen there and always did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore.Last year I read Dandelion Wine with book club, my first reading since I was a teenager. Then I reread Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I also last read as a teenager.
Frankly, I could easily make it a habit every year of reading Dandelion Wine and Farewell, Summer both on the Autumn Equinox. The older I get, the more I have to learn from children.
