Clear and cold—not numbingly so but colder than July’s usual temperatures—my son charged off the dock five times to plunge into McGregor Lake. It’s the time of the year when we say: one last swim or hike or climb or campout or paddle. The lake may have looked inviting, especially with its startling clarity, but after Charlie swam to the surface and yelped, it was obvious that summer waters have made their dip toward fall.
The kids in my household aren’t the only two who compete for most time spent outside after school before the setting sun, earlier and earlier each day. I’m also married to a mountain climber who tracks the high peaks when he drives the kids to school and tries to plan one last big outing in Glacier before the snow or inclement weather makes such treks less than inviting. Or safe. Outside the national park, the high country and the forests become the domain of hunters.
I’m a water lover myself, but my tolerance for cold water has lessened, a response I once thought was surely impossible and only reserved for parents who woke up one day and decided to become Not Fun, so I waded in McGregor last weekend and couldn’t muster the courage to join Charlie cannonballing off the dock. I used the excuse that I didn’t bring my swimsuit as an excuse for my developing middle-age Not Fun state. But spending these fleeting days on the lake paddling a canoe and sprawling on sunbaked rocks? Count me in. I might no longer participate in 20-plus-mile climbs to stand atop a peak but I haven’t completely forgotten my outdoorsy self that knows by mid-September it’s time to hoard sunlight and warmth like a squirrel caches nuts.
As the weather holds, we keep filling in the blank with activities that are best conducted without the interference of truly inclement weather. Despite the legions of wasps and hornets laying siege to al fresco diners, we still try to eat dinner on the deck. Perhaps like a bear entering hyperphagia, I am doing this with the last pulses of summer light. Lunches outside, swim towels at the ready, and checking forecasts for one last weekend hike.
The benefit of living in a place with four distinct seasons (yes, I know, spring is a tricky one because it’s not as defined as summer or winter and likes to come into town like a diva) is that while we may be reconciling the “one last” of summer, we have “the first” on the horizon. The first frost, the first snowfall in the high country, which then leads to the first accumulation that we all hope will only increase. The first ski of the season or the first snowball. The first day we run the woodstove or turn on the heat, as if it’s a mark of character. I have friends who hold out as long as they can before they turn on the furnace, an act of hardiness and stubbornness. How cold can we feel before we need the heat?
Recently, this country has lost two literary luminaries who championed all the seasons and advocated that each of us pay attention to the changes and small miracles living close to the earth offers. Wendell Berry, poet, writer, and farmer, died at the end of August at the age of 92. Perhaps you’re familiar with his best-known poetry collection, “The Peace of Wild Things: And Other Poems.” Not long after Berry’s death, Annie Dillard died at the age of 81. Perhaps Dillard wasn’t as prolific as Berry, who penned 40 books over his long lifetime spent farming in Kentucky, but she was considered one of America’s titans of literature after the 1974 publication of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” a collection of essays on her observations and wanderings near her home in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Both Dillard and Berry inspired countless readers to hew more closely to the land and to seek solace in “the peace of wild things.” I am one of the many who read Dillard and Berry with an eagerness and devotion, which has likely shaped my motivation for one last (fill in the blank) before the next season unfurls.
And, just as bracing as it was to watch Charlie plunge into the chilly lake while the golden sun hovered above us, I felt a sense of peace and awe that we could get another “one last.”