Stop harrying me into fall

Summer ends on Sept. 22. Relax. Enjoy the last of the warm weather. The PSL will be there when you get back.

We were on the beach in Revere on Sunday. It was the day before Labor Day. The kind of late summer day that you want to last forever.

The waves hit the beach like they had nowhere else to be. Parents splashed with their kids in the shallows. The traffic moved lazily down the boulevard. No one seemed in a hurry for summer to end.

Least of all me.

We’d had a leisurely lunch at a café overlooking the beach. L.L. Bean, God bless them, had set up a loaner operation for beach chairs and umbrellas. We helped ourselves and ambled down to the sand. At some point, I dozed off, as I always do with the sound of the water in my ears, the sun on my face, and the wind blowing just so.

It was a moment that was near enough to perfect as you’re going to get.

Summers are always a blur. Or at least they’ve become that way lately. When your kids are out of school, as mine has been for a couple of years now, the bookends of the seasons don’t mean quite as much as they used to.

The start of classes after Labor Day and the end of classes a little after Memorial Day kind of lose their poignance. They become two more days to catch up on all the stuff that you don’t get a chance to do during the week.

This summer, more than most, passed by quickly. It was June, and we were packing. And then it was July, and we were moving house in Boston, and then moving our daughter up here so that she could start classes. And then it was August, and I thought, ahh, a moment to exhale and to enjoy the summer.

And certainly, there were moments in there. Endless long, hot days where I took long walks along Fan Pier after lunch, marveling, as I often do, at this city I call home.

There were more walks (and a run or two) along the beach. And evenings out at sidewalk cafés in our neighborhood. And then, somehow, it was the end of August, and I wasn’t sure how I got there.

But I do know that, somewhere around mid-August, the fall memes started showing up in my IG feed. The kitschy drinks started showing up at Starbucks. And everyone seemed in an infernal rush to get to fall.

And that’s what made me laugh out loud when this showed up in my feed tonight:

Because, yes. We still have weeks of summer to go. The cool weather and crispness of fall will be here soon enough — and I say this as an affirmed lover of fall in New England, one of the best places on the planet to experience the change of seasons.

But we’re harried now, from moment to moment. We rush from home to work and then back again. We rush from outrage to outrage on social media, kept in a state of constant agitation over … Cracker Barrel? For real?

We yearn for those slow summers of our youth. We write think pieces on how we can recapture them and share them with our hyperprogrammed children.

We’re plagued by the sense that we have to do … something … or we’re not being productive enough. It happened to us on Sunday after we got back from the beach: We looked at each other and said, “Aren’t we supposed to be doing something right now?”

Even though it was Sunday, on a long holiday weekend. In the summer. When you’re not supposed to be doing anything at all. For God’s sake, there was nothing to do except enjoy the quiet of the day and each other’s company.

And … yet …

There is no need to rush, to harry ourselves from season to another. We don’t get those moments back. We get older. Our kids get older. And we look up and realize that we have spent so much time yearning for that moment to come that we have entirely forgotten to savor the moment before us.

It’s emblazoned on my arm. It’s at the bottom of this email: Memento Mori.

Remember you are mortal.

For a few hours on Sunday on a beach in Revere, time stood still. I’m keeping that moment close to me. And I’ll wring every moment out of this summer.

And I’ll see you all after the equinox and happily enjoy every moment of the autumn. But not a second before that.

The time is too precious.

Okay. That’s it for now. I’ll be back soon with more stuff. As always, you can send comments, questions, and tips to johnlmicekjournalist@gmail.com.

Memento Mori