The days are beginning to shorten and I had barely noticed. It gets dark earlier, and at dusk a point of coolness smells of September, of green chestnuts, of returning.
I have been going over the summer slowly, like someone leafing through a notebook without looking for anything. It has not been a summer of big things, and I am glad.
It taught me not to fill everything. To leave gaps between one day and the next, between one visit and another. Not to confuse being busy with being alive.
It taught me that rest is not what is left when the work ends, but something you tend like anything you want to grow.
It taught me the sea, which orders; the hands, which hold; the figs, eaten with your hands. Lessons learned only in the body.
With the routine peeking over the calendar, I feel neither hurry nor laziness. I feel gratitude when something ends well.
I keep this summer the way you keep a place to return to: whole, warm, available.