Labor Day, in what seems to be becoming a new tradition, I spent the afternoon at Saratoga’s beautiful Victoria Pool. The weather forecast was mixed, but I was confident that the sun would cooperate to give me a dose of vitamin D, even after I drove through rain showers on the road north.
I arrived in the early afternoon and got settled on an available chaise, happy at the prospect of catching up on Sunday’s NYT and basking (slathered with spf 30) in the sun. Within moments, however, the skies darkened menacingly and a clap of thunder forced us all off the pool deck and under cover.
So, I found a bench, ate my lunch, and bided my time until I could return to my previous location. Thirty minutes later my patience was rewarded and I resumed my position poolside.
Dramatic rain aside, it was a quiet day at the pool. Between perusing sections of the paper I napped, stared at the skies and dove into the colder-than-anticipated water, happy to have the luxury of time to acknowledge, and reflect upon, the end of my long summer break.
While it wasn’t really what I had hoped for it to be, summer was most certainly more good than bad. I spent time with my oldest friends and even managed to make some new ones. The west coast trip I took with my son simultaneously provided peace and inspiration while my time on the Cape with friends was restorative and reflective.
It isn’t a bad thing to explore and evaluate where our limitations and boundaries may lie. In fact, I recommend it.
As a child, I recall thinking that summer was such a long season that flowering trees bloomed twice. I’d abandoned that belief as a misremembering, however, on a walk Tuesday morning with Jeter, I was proved correct when I observed a single lilac bush sporting a handful of fragrant blossoms.
I have to confess that I snapped off a bloom to place bedside. On this New Year holiday, facing the start of a new academic year, how could I not bring this sign of spring and fresh beginnings into my home? Inhaling the scent of one of my favorite, yet decidedly out of season, flowers struck me as an incredibly positive portent of the possibilities that lie ahead.
Choose to interpret and process the day as you will. Is it an ending or beginning? What will you carry with you as you move forward? For me, it’ll be a stronger sense of who I am, a few more freckles, and the reminder that each ending heralds the potential of a new beginning.
And proof that sometimes spring, in fact, does come in September.
