A Short, Welcome Season

Natalie Marshman

            If someone asked me to describe a perfect sanctuary, I would explain, word for word, about the tranquil beach in Kennebunkport, Maine. It is tranquil in an unexpected way- there are children screaming, seagulls screeching, and the sound of the lifeguard’s whistle blowing every few minutes. But this all settles in the gentle hum of the beach, and the noise, instead of being intrusive, sings me to sleep as a lie on the sandy beach, feeling the sun bleach the top of my soaking hair. I lazily watch the beach scenes- tan, exuberant children jumping on their sandcastles, mothers pouring sunscreen on their children, and the fat man drifting towards the ocean, surf board in hand. I feel a part of the beach but then apart, as I am surrounded by these people but am not in contact with any of them. I close my eyes and bury deeper into the sand, feeling the grains stick to my skin as the ocean breeze tickles my face.

As I return to my refuge at the beach day after day, I am struck by a sense of apartness from society. It seems as if my summer days are composed of sleeping, eating, and surfing, and all of these activities are performed sluggishly at the beach. My last day in Maine, as I am preparing for the tedious drive home, I am struck with the collision of my lazy beach time with the fast-paced rhythm of life of the rest of the world. As the cars speed by on the highway, I know that my long, glorious summer days are slowly drifting away as I quickly become adapted to the hurried hustle and bustle of civilized life. As we turn into my driveway and leap out of the car, lugging 60 pound suitcases up the staircases and shaking the sand out of our shoes, my precious days of summer have officially become a memory. I know that in the next few days, hot dogs will turn to homework, sunscreen will turn into stress, and my life will dust itself off and rejoin the hectic race of life.

One could say that the moment when summer and fall collide is the moment in which I arrive home from my breezy, simple routine of going to my beach. I prefer to think of summer and fall colliding when I rejoin the rest of civilization and abandon my peaceful spot at the seashore. However, neither is true. The moment when summer and fall collide is not a moment, but a feeling. It is the feeling of the air getting thinner as the leaves reluctantly start to break off from their trees, the light getting softer as it filters and winks through the branches, and the sound of ocean waves crashing against rocks being replaced by school buses starting their routes. The days get so short and narrow that it feels as if you have to squeeze through them. There is a last night of summer, when the light sparkles faintly from between the leaves, seeming to laugh at my desperation to have summer last. Soon the crickets will stop chirping, I will blink, and my days of summer will have abandoned me without even a goodbye.