Whatever it costs, I'll pay it

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work and I had a flashback, a moment of deja vu. Although it was early June, I couldn't get my mind away from a late July day in 2008, when my children were little and the company where I had worked for a long time was about to shut down, after an extended post-acquisition period of attrition. I was among the last remaining employees. I was apprehensive but optimistic about the future. My children were old enough to get in and out of the car on their own but young enough to sit on the floor and play with Legos. There wasn't much left for me to do at work except wait for the whole thing to shut down. It was a pretty carefree time. And the crape myrtle was in full bloom.

*****

I drove home from work on Monday, thinking about lots of things, but mostly about why crape myrtle is spelled so oddly. It’s crape myrtle season again, and I have mixed feelings about this. And unorthodox spellings bother me, too, so I looked it up to find out what the hell. It was comforting to learn that others dislike the “crape” spelling and that apparently “crepe” is accepted usage now. Now, however, we have two different spellings of the same word, and this bothers me too.

But let’s get off the subject of spelling for a moment, even though it’s one of my favorite subjects. Crepe myrtle (I’m going with what I believe to be the better of the two spellings) trees are beautiful, big and colorful with a lovely shape; and crepe myrtle season is the very pinnacle of summer. So what’s not to love? Why the mixed feelings? It’s because once you reach the pinnacle, there’s nowhere to go but down. Crepe myrtles are the beginning of the end of summer.

This is a crepe myrtle tree in my front yard.
I have no idea why this picture is so dark.
It might be a Google Pixel planned obsolescence thing.
Or I might have a dirty lens. Either possibility seems likely. 

*****

There’s always a turning point, every summer. There’s a day in late July or maybe very early August, when the haze lifts and the air cools and it’s just as hot in the sun as it ever is in summer, but the breeze has an edge that reminds you that fall is coming. This happened on Wednesday--Wednesday was the turning point. Summer will return for a bit--it always does--but after the turning point, it always feels like borrowed time. 

Eleven summers since that long-ago crepe myrtle season that feels like last week, and they go faster every year. There are no dog days, no lazy days of summer. It always feels like summer is on loan and the balloon payment is due soon. And it is, because every minute of life is borrowed. The interest rate on summer is just higher.