I watched summer be laid to rest last Labor Day night as lifeguards removed all signs of life from the Leonia pool while a faithful few held on for the final moments with their beloved. This was more like a hospital vigil than anything I've ever seen. Everyone knew death was imminent, and wanted to be there for the final moments when they pulled the plug and summer succumbed to lifelessness. Any other day at the pool, there is laughing, splashing, relaxing, reading, and lap swimming. But yesterday, people at the pool were somber, ashen-faced, and tense. Summer was in critical condition, something hard to believe when temperatures remain so warm that you have to use the air conditioning at home. Surely we could swim well into October this year if someone would just let us do it. But they won't.
During summer's final hour, lifeguards lifted the lap lane lines out of the pool and dragged them away while several adults swam their final laps of the year without any way to restrain them from zigging and zagging. One young woman I'd met earlier in the summer who had grown up in town, learned to swim at the pool, and competed on the swim team kept stopping where the diving board had been taken away to stare off beyond the fence for a couple of minutes, appearing to struggle with having to face the final moments of summer's imminent death. Having summer taken away in its prime every year is traumatic, like losing Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy in 1968 over and over again. Winter gets old each year and passes on expectedly while summer goes down tragically in its prime, still young, green, and vibrant.
A few of us kept swimming laps while the lifeguards continued preparing for the inevitable, stacking and carrying away the lounge and upright chairs. The umbrellas over the lifeguard stands were all lifted off, rolled up, and stacked. At this point, I pushed my body a little harder in the pool, sprinting across as fast as I could in hopes of getting a great workout that would last until the end of September. But I know the conditioning I have gained over the past three months will soon wear off as fall and winter bully us into chilly, sedentary lives.
I feel younger when I step out into a summer day, as if the clock turns back a few minutes on my middle-aged life and I regain a little of what's been lost along the way. But now I must face the coming autumn beauty and enjoy the vibrant colors before gray winter comes.
During summer's final hour, lifeguards lifted the lap lane lines out of the pool and dragged them away while several adults swam their final laps of the year without any way to restrain them from zigging and zagging. One young woman I'd met earlier in the summer who had grown up in town, learned to swim at the pool, and competed on the swim team kept stopping where the diving board had been taken away to stare off beyond the fence for a couple of minutes, appearing to struggle with having to face the final moments of summer's imminent death. Having summer taken away in its prime every year is traumatic, like losing Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy in 1968 over and over again. Winter gets old each year and passes on expectedly while summer goes down tragically in its prime, still young, green, and vibrant.
A few of us kept swimming laps while the lifeguards continued preparing for the inevitable, stacking and carrying away the lounge and upright chairs. The umbrellas over the lifeguard stands were all lifted off, rolled up, and stacked. At this point, I pushed my body a little harder in the pool, sprinting across as fast as I could in hopes of getting a great workout that would last until the end of September. But I know the conditioning I have gained over the past three months will soon wear off as fall and winter bully us into chilly, sedentary lives.
I feel younger when I step out into a summer day, as if the clock turns back a few minutes on my middle-aged life and I regain a little of what's been lost along the way. But now I must face the coming autumn beauty and enjoy the vibrant colors before gray winter comes.