Fleeting

It's late July, crape myrtle time, summer-winding-down-already time. We have the whole month of August of course but once the crape myrtle appears, we're on the slippery downward slope to fall. Pumpkin spice is about to rear its ugly head if it hasn't already. Bleak. 

The thing is that it's blazing hot, brilliantly sunny, intensely humid - central casting summer conditions, almost impossible to think about chill and sweaters and school and pumpkin bleeding spice. But the summer swim season is just about over now, our last one ever. Everyone is leaving town. Graduation seems years in the past. Even 4th of July seems like a distant memory. 

It's 5:30 PM on Friday, and I'm waiting for my hairdresser to finish with another customer. There is a stack of People magazines in the waiting area, including the July 10 issue with the OceanGate tragedy on the cover. Was it just weeks ago that the entire country was gripped by this story? And now it's also in the past, all but forgotten by everyone except the families and friends of the victims.

*****

It's Saturday morning now and we are sitting in our team area at the West Arundel Swim Club in Laurel, Maryland. It's the Prince Mont Swim League All Stars meet, our really really really last and final summer swim meet ever. 

It's tropical here, very warm and very humid at 8:50 in the morning. It rained last night and this place is like a swamp. We're all crowded together in our folding chairs under our team canopy, surrounded by the crowded team canopies of the 35 other teams in the league. Swampy, I tell you, and densely populated; a summer swimming tent city. IYKYK. 

We can't even see the pool from our spot. We secured a tiny standing spot on the pool deck, and watched our boys take 2nd place in the medley relay, way outperforming their sixth seed. We gave up our spot after that race so that other parents could watch their daughters in the girls medley relay, and we'll have to work our way back in there when it's time for butterfly and breaststroke and IM. Everyone gets a turn at the good viewing spots. That's just good manners. All Stars etiquette. We're all in this swamp together. 

*****

Our air conditioning chose yesterday,  one of the hottest days of the year so far, to take what I suppose it considers a well-earned break. And it wasn't so bad. Things cooled down considerably last night and I slept with the windows open and a ceiling fan on high and a crisp cotton sheet over my body, and it was fine. The guy is coming to fix the system today; or rather, he is coming today and we hope that he can fix it. If he can’t, then our very spoiled family will live with a few more days of discomfort. It’ll probably do us good, really. 

We saw “Barbie” last night, and we’re seeing “Oppenheimer” today. The line for popcorn was long and every seat in the place was filled, almost, and people even applauded. After the movie, my husband watched women’s World Cup highlights, our family room dark and quiet with the fan on high. We sat still to stay cool. This, too, is the most summery thing, a shared excitement over a movie or a sporting event or a news story; and then an abrupt shift in mood as the zeitgeist moves on to other things. July gives way to August and the mood transitions from peak summer to impending autumn. There will be a cool morning at some point; not just cool but close to chilly. There will be an evening sometime early in August when someone will lament that it’s only 8 PM and it’s almost dark. There will be a week in late August when every child in the neighborhood will show up at the pool right as it opens, and they’ll stay all day, squeezing every last drop out of the waning summer. By then, the place will be a riot of pink of all shades. The crape myrtle will be in full bloom. 

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