I just remembered that today, the second Tuesday of the month, is what the British call the Glorious Twelfth—the longstanding conclusion of the social season and of summer, and the commencement of a long and, yes, glorious Scottish autumn. Officially today marks the opening of Grouse hunting season in the northern home country, which immediately conjures thoughts of purple shades of heather upon a undulating hillside, patches of color against the oft-appearing shroud of grey from the Scottish skies.
Here in Pennsylvania we have no such tradition, yet to me it is a reminder that August is the most fleeting of all months, a transitional period during which the sand grains of summer accelerate their slip through the hourglass, and we are left with shortening days, and for my teacher wife and I, less time together.
When I was younger and still in school, this meant that my family’s summers together were ending. My mother, at any rate, would already be back at school, meticulously preparing and inventorying for a new school year that wouldn’t start until the Tuesday after September. Dad would be left to take a few more day trips with my brother and I, or play a round or two of miniature golf upon our favorite courses. It never seemed like enough time, and it always felt a bit ridiculous that we were carted off to our daily confinement in public school long before the days grew short.
Yet nowadays when there is no school for me to go back to, there is something still triumphant about the twelfth of August. Only in the fast-paced American mind is summer slowing down. There is still more to do, more to see, and plenty else to enjoy. The corn is ripe and high, and its seas of whimsical tassels capture the orange of sunset so eloquently. The rolling hills are drift below the haze of heat, and all are caught in their long and richly pastoral gaze.
Yes, August is glorious here in Pennsylvania, too. For its incoming carts of local doughnut peaches and ear and after ear of sweet corn. For the occasional refreshment of the thunderstorms and the colorful rainbows they sometimes bring. And especially for those lovely evenings that cut through the heat and invite you out for a walk in the fields or below the boughs of arboreta. Be it on the first or the twelfth or the thirty-first, August will remain splendid in our eyes so long as we do not permit ourselves to be caught up in the sad inconveniences of our humanity. When we think only of our children going back to school, or our checklist of to-dos, or evening of our dislike of the eventual-coming winter, we can scarcely appreciate the joyous days we truly have. Indeed, God has given us a glorious month, so we can remember his presence in every season.