Suddenly Last Summer

Letter to a Rainy Day

Good friend, as you drop lightly, from the room where I type this letter I can glance over my shoulder and through a window observe the gray you've casted and framed. It is September and the air has cooled. In the morning I commute on trains that once again carry students, still refreshed by their summer vacations, some sobered by the dawn of their freshmen year. Everyone looks so stern and rigid, stubborn as the last leaves that cling to branches; everyone has returned to September with their collection of reluctance, anticipation, and nostalgia. Memories of past Septembers, prospects promised by a fading summer, threats whispered by a not too distant winter--the day you fall upon, my dear friend, is a subtle Friday where no one can any longer doubt, September has arrived.

It is only a few days before fall officially opens. If counted in steps, it is no more than three forward; fall, stands away just as far and no further--she knows there's no need to move, everyone is walking towards her. Perhaps friend, you are the last rain of the summer. How would you feel if you were? No one usually takes note of such things. A gray Friday with fields of clouds like a silver fleece of cotton, covering us in from above; the last Friday of the season. With it, what shall the summer take? What is it you're washing away? Don't answer any of these. Hopefully these questions aren't boring you. It is my only intention to take note of you, address you, introduce myself and say farewell when the time comes. Still, you must notice it yourself, do you not? The change in the air. Everything gains gravity, heavies and becomes dense. The cold, first as a breeze then a restless chill, will soon howl in an icy frenzy. This is when the soul hibernates, so to speak. Hiding in the deep warmths of the heart, safely tucked and wrapped in all the electricity that plainly vibrated through the skin during the spring and exploded throughout the summer. The soul is away and the rest of the body and mind, observing its absence, searches for their missing peer. The less its available, the more desperately valuable the soul becomes as winter approaches through fall. Without our soul, our lives gain weight; the lightness with which we commanded action swells into a clumsy bulk.

Have you ever observed this about us my friend? Our life under our calendar also follows its own set of seasons. Soul and Sol are more than homonymously linked. Within you, your soul shifts, expands and contracts; leans forward intensely, and later withdraws in arctic ambience. At its closest, the soul is magnificently ignored, its in use like a pair of good legs that walk almost involuntarily without the step by step command of the mind or body. When hidden, its adamantly desired, analyzed and stressed for its lack of presence. Here, I laugh. Embarrassed at my words. I am getting ahead of myself--sorry. I don't mean to imply these things to be true, its only my imagination getting carried away like a newly wedded wife out from the altar. If there were such a material or immaterial as a soul, and if it were impressionably receptive of environment--then what a thought to imagine the season of a soul. The shying of a soul, decreasing in size and brightness, buried carefully and living off the energy it stored during its fall season. Which leads us back to September and the sense of seriousness and responsibility, much contrasting the frivolity of June and the two and third months that follow.

Anyway, so long friend. I've kept you long enough, you are a saint for reading my wrinkled thoughts. Goodbye, thank you for the morning.