The other day I was walking up to the house after running an errand and I noticed a tiny shadow bobbing in front of me. It took a second to process that it was something from above. Just then a single oak leaf spiraled into my field of vision and settled onto the ground.
It was 93 degrees at the time.
In meteorological terms, summer turned to fall on Sept. 1; in astronomical terms, the equinox doesn’t happen until the 22nd. Most years, here in the Carolinas, fall arrives somewhere in between. There’s usually a morning around now when you step outside and it feels like the air has been scrubbed clean. It’s not a day on the calendar. It’s a feeling.
I’ve had another feeling the last few years: Summer is having a harder and harder time letting go. Part of that is climate change. Part of it is personal. I’m glad to see the cooler days when they finally come. But the change from summer to fall reminds me of deeper changes.
Alix and I got to spend time with a bunch of old work friends this past week—some we hadn’t seen in 20 or 30 years. Before that, at the end of August, the members of my fantasy football league got together for our annual draft. That league has been running for 39 years, and I’ve been friends with a couple of guys in the league since middle school. So over the span of a few weeks, I got to hang out with people I’ve known from my early teens to my early 60s.
Most everybody we talked to is still active in one way or another—even most of the retired ones are volunteering or traveling or hiking up in the mountains somewhere. Still, the conversations often drifted toward balky knees or blood-pressure meds. And we spent a good bit of time remembering the friends who are no longer with us.
We are all like planets, in a way, moving through the world in multiple ways at once. Planets rotate to mark the days while revolving around the sun to mark the years. We rotate through the seasons of the year while slowly tearing pages from the calendars of our lives. The mystery is that none of us know how many days we’re granted. I know I’m closer to the end than the beginning, but how close? Every year, when summer starts to fade, I wonder how many summers I’ve got left.
They’re a little harder to get through these days—every year the season gets hotter and my skin gets thinner. But I still do love a day on the water, cicadas in the trees, a perfect ripe peach. I love hanging out with old friends and remembering all we’ve shared. I love the memories. I love thinking about summers to come. But I also know all we really have is now.
There’s this philosophical question that goes something like: Can God create a rock so heavy that even he can’t lift it? (Apologies for the “he” there…) That’s an interesting question, I guess, but I like this one better: Can God will himself not to know the future? Like, can God watch the Super Bowl without knowing who’s going to win? Because that not-knowing, as painful as it can be, seems like the most delicious part of being human. We never know the ending to our own story. There’s so much we can’t control. We just have to tumble through the summers and enjoy our time in the sun.
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10 things I wanted to share this week:
I was interviewed for two podcasts recently about the post I did a couple weeks ago on my life on GLP-1 drugs. The first interview was with host Steve Dunn on the Charlotte Ledger Podcast …
And the second was with host Ed Levine on the Special Sauce Podcast through Serious Eats. Both guys asked really good questions and got me thinking even more about weight and culture and how hard it is to change.
A quick follow-up on my LONESOME DOVE post from last week: Netflix is planning a new version of the series. No actors attached yet. Make your suggestions in the comments. (I suspect at least one of the suggestions will be “DON’T MAKE ANOTHER DAMN VERSION, IT WAS PERFECT THE FIRST TIME.”)
Among all the powerful stories on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, one that stuck with me was Doreen Gentzler’s piece on a survivor of the attack on the Pentagon, and how she still searches for peace. There’s also a sidebar on the medevac crew that helped save her life. (Washingtonian)
I should also mention here that if you haven’t read Tom Junod’s “The Falling Man,” you should. (Esquire)
Here’s a lovely obit. I wish I’d known Michael De Simone. (The Chronicle of Centralia, WA)
Workers unite: College football kickers started sharing info about the deals they were getting—and started making more money as a result. (Wall Street Journal)
The billionaire chairman of the Lee Enterprises newspaper chain commissioned a profile package of himself headlined NEW HOPE FOR LOCAL NEWS. You'll never guess what happened next. (Poynter.org)
I don’t really enjoy Nathan Fielder’s work, and I want absolutely nothing to do with disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes … having said that, this trailer for the documentary YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING is one of the most intriguing and uncomfortable clips I’ve ever seen.
Sometimes the algorithm works. The other day Instagram offered up a clip from a country singer named Tony Jackson. I hadn’t heard of him, but I fell in love with his cover of George Jones’ “The Grand Tour”—which, if it ain’t the saddest song of all time, definitely makes the medal stand. It must be daunting to cover the greatest country singer who ever lived, but I think the Possum would have enjoyed this one.
Upcoming events
Oct. 21-22: I’m speaking at Converge-Con, a conference on artificial intelligence and creativity in Chapel Hill. Open to the public.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
—TT
My books DOGLAND and THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM are available in all formats pretty much everywhere books are sold.
Thank you for reminding me to enjoy each of these days of late summer. I’m listening to the crickets’ chirps, slower as the nighttime temperatures fall.
FYI, thanks to Shedhead Anne for catching an error: The country singer at the end is TONY Jackson, not Troy. I've edited the post to reflect that.