Summer and its fleeting nature

This time of year reminds me, in the best of ways, of the impermanence of it all. A ripe sunny mango will spoil if you don’t succumb to its sweet siren call. The summer flowers dance a particularly fine line between growth and 40 degree death, and what feels like endless summer afternoons that stretch on perpetually, eventually morph into the shocking reintroduction of alarms, school shoe hunting and routine.

I was alerted in my wanders today that we maybe get 80 summers if we’re lucky. Only 80 times to taste stone fruits at their peak, hot fuzz peach cheeks ready to burst. Of barefoot wanders and sunsets watched by weary eyes as bedtime pushes till 10pm, warm skin under fan puffs that barely changes the comfort level.

Possibly 80 New Years resolutions, where we decide if we love the current version or want to overhaul and start from scratch. Where we decide to embrace a change or let fate decide when this season will transition.

This time is fleeting whether you pause to acknowledge the fact or not. The season for each flower is temporary. The crops ripen and are stripped. The paddocks prepared for the seeds yet to come. There is no pause button. No freeze frame or intermission. The joys, the sorrows, the monotony, the elation. The full spectrum of feelings that come with each chapter… that is the point. All fleeting and, as hard as it is to acknowledge, all the point.

So few things are permanent. It makes the few things that stick beyond a few seasons all the more worthwhile. Here’s to that.