Quotes from the Classics: September
When my oldest baby was an actual baby - no more than 2 or 3 years old - we began a tradition of watching September sunrises. This didn’t happen as it would in the movies. It was not the result of arduous pre-planning or creative brainstorming. It spawned from pure chaos, like the best ideas often are.
When my oldest baby was an actual baby - no more than 2 or 3 years old - we began a tradition of watching September sunrises. This didn’t happen as it would in the movies. It was not the result of arduous pre-planning or creative brainstorming. It spawned from pure chaos, like the best ideas often do.
From the outset, my lovely daughter and I failed to see eye to eye on one important concept. I was madly in Love with sleeping (still am) and she was tolerant, at best (still is). To her, sleep was a necessary part of the human experience, sure, but certainly not something one would purposely go out of their way to do. Sleep was something that just kind of fell upon you when you weren’t paying attention, and in particularly interesting situations, something to be fought against at every turn lest you be caught unawares, fall victim, and MISS something. And when you’re 2 or 3, everything is an interesting situation.
My sweet child decided the best way to retain all the things she’d learned during the day would be to do a systematic review at bedtime…out loud…for hours. If she wasn’t otherwise fighting nap time, she believed dozing for 5 minutes in the car was perfectly sufficient. If she woke up in the morning, going back to sleep wasn’t an option, at least for a few hours. I spent years a haggard shell of a woman and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was often angry with her. Every once in a while, though, a particularly brilliant mom moment helped me to redeem myself.
Sunrise and tall grass by Rose Erkul
I had such a moment one ridiculously early morning when I woke to find big, blinking, brown eyes staring at me. After having sung songs, rubbed and soothed, brewed tea, coaxed and cajoled, all to no avail, I packed my little one up, drove to the lake, and watched wonder fill her face as color and light filled the clear September sky. Our tradition had begun.
Since then, the places have changed, and we’ve even added another member to our little crew, but the tradition remains, the September sun rising so late in the morning as to not thwart the sleep my eldest does get these days. Our latest location is at the top of a very high hill that requires us to trek across a field and up 116 steps. When we first found it, my youngest (who Loves to sleep, thank heaven) was about the same age as her sister. Each year about halfway across the field, she would inevitably yell, “Mommy, I can’t make it.” I’d have to pick her up and race across dewy grass and up a concrete corridor to the beat the sun! We always made it, though my chest felt like it was going to cave in each time. I watched a new little face fill with the same amazement my oldest and I had come to know, and the three of us would face the coming of a new day together.
Recently my littlest has managed to make the journey without help, and there is a pang of sadness. I know they’re growing up and I will have to let them go, as the trees let their leaves go each Fall. I also know nothing real is ever really gone. I know that while seasons change and years pass, relationships woven with September sunrises and lots of Love, will remain.
Check out these quotes that capture the specialness of September:
“All the months are crude experiments, out of which the perfect September is made.”
“Happily we bask in this warm September sun, which illuminates all creatures…”
“Comfort me with apples. ”
“I’ll tell you how the Sun rose -
A Ribbon at a time -
The Steeples swam in Amethyst -
The news, like Squirrels, ran - ”
“There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!”
“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. ”
“The first breath of autumn was in the air, a prodigal feeling, a feeling of wanting, taking, and keeping before it is too late.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
Quotes from the Classics: August
Hello, August! Mid-to-late summer has a distinctly different feel than the first half of the season. As with everything, I’m finding I have to pay close attention to get in on the magic. On the surface, things are moving. Gardens are full and neighbors are frantically exchanging zucchinis and tomatoes from plants they’ve nurtured, plants that have now gone bonkers as a result. The bounty of fresh food, perfumed with summer’s carefree essence, initiates front porch conversations and handwritten thank you cards. Joy and exuberance emanate like the sparks of nearby bonfires glittering in the open night.
Hello, August! Mid-to-late summer has a distinctly different feel than the first half of the season. As with everything, I’m finding I have to pay close attention to get in on the magic. On the surface, things are moving. Gardens are full and neighbors are frantically exchanging zucchinis and tomatoes from plants they’ve nurtured, plants that have now gone bonkers as a result. The bounty of fresh food, perfumed with summer’s carefree essence, initiates front porch conversations and handwritten thank you cards. Joy and exuberance emanate like the sparks of nearby bonfires glittering in the open night.
And yet, there is something grounding in the energy too. The squirrels that spent much of their days chasing each other from branch to branch and up and down tree trunks, may feel the cooler night air or notice a leaf or two a little yellower than the rest toward the bottom of a favorite tree. They are gathering with a bit more intention now. There are mature plants with wide open faces basking in summer sun and also going to seed, appreciation for food and also commitment to storing it, gratitude for crystal blue skies and for the hoodies that keep us warm on cool nights.
Sunflower by Domenico Gentile
There are a million reflections of existence that have manifested themselves in the last months, and there are a million more displays of Life’s ever-and-always-becoming. This strange and beautiful August alchemy that blends and mixes rapture and responsibility, also produces something altogether new. It exists at the fringes of my awareness, probably overlooked, if not for writing this post, and yet as familiar as breath. And it is this: I am the one to prepare, to build, to move, to bring to fruition my part of a wondrous unfolding. I am the one to create my life. And if not me, then who?
I am part of this beautiful rhythm and so I carry forward a heart full of warm summer blessings, grateful for growth. I hold close what matters most to me, grounding deeper roots of understanding. I adopt the same spirit of determination and commitment I feel pervading this season and draw it within to strengthen and sustain me. And I open myself to a willingness to let all else fall away in the coming season, ever devoted to the summer that will come again as sure as the sun will rise in the East.
Tall grass and sunshine by Niklas Hamann
Check out these beautiful quotes from the classics that point to the essence of August. Enjoy!
“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.”
“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
“If we had never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man or woman grown, sat down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind would be filled with its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such things could be mere matter and no more. Like a dream of some spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit to be touched lest it should fall to pieces, too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away.”
“The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ”
“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
Quotes from the Classics: July
Fireworks and watermelon and pool parties…oh, my! Summer is here and in full sweltering effect if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere! My family and I usually find ourselves near the Lake-Oceans of Michigan or Wisconsin around the 4th of July, basking in the majesty and splendor of what seems to be a well-kept secret outside the Midwest. Visiting has become a a bit of an accidental tradition, in that somehow, year after year and without plan, we end up running down sand dunes, munching fresh farmer’s market cherries, delighting in monarch butterflies, roasting marshmallows over blazing bonfires, stargazing, or watching sunsets and moonrises over the water. I’m a July baby and these visits, full of fireworks and festive displays celebrating our country, have become a sort of unofficial birthday party for me too.
Fireworks and watermelon and pool parties…oh, my! Summer is here and in full sweltering effect if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere! My family and I usually find ourselves near the Lake-Oceans of Michigan or Wisconsin around the 4th of July, basking in the majesty and splendor of what seems to be a well-kept secret outside the Midwest. Visiting has become a bit of an accidental tradition, in that somehow, year after year and without plan, we end up running down sand dunes, munching fresh farmer’s market cherries, delighting in monarch butterflies, roasting marshmallows over blazing bonfires, stargazing, or watching sunsets and moonrises over the water. I’m a July baby and these visits, full of fireworks and festive displays celebrating our country, have become a sort of unofficial birthday party for me too.
Sparklers by Zoritsa Valova
This year, my kiddos and I spent hours rock-hunting in the dark along Pier Cove Beach in Fennville, MI. We wanted a yooperlite - perfectly ordinary looking rock by day, fire-breathing space stone by night. Okay, it’s not really from space and it doesn’t breathe fire, but it does glow brilliantly under UV at night. We learned about them during a camping trip a year or so ago. A fellow camper pulled out a black light, shined it over an unassuming gray rock, and wowed us all. This was our chance to claim a coveted luminous stone of our own!
We searched and searched for treasure, but did not find any yooperlites. We were not exactly disappointed - at least no more so than we would have been, had we been thwarted only to come back again the next day. We sensed this would not be our last exploration. But more importantly, we were carrying the real treasure with us and we seemed to know it. It was tucked among the heart shaped rocks, beautiful little pebbles, and 55-million year old lightning stones we did collect. The treasure was the magic of a search and not a find. It was the stories we had weaved and intermingled with the stories of ancient rocks, formed by fire and ice. It was the midsummer memories of connection and contentment, memories soaked in the Spirit of July.
For more summer vibes, check out the classic quotes below:
“There is no duty we so much underrated as the duty of being happy.”
“It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as a butterfly in the light-laden air.”
“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”
“Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats.”
“I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer – its dust and lowering skies.”
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink in the wild air’s salubrity.”
“Lift every voice and sing,
’Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen