Summer too short in a year that’s too long

Every year, it seems to start earlier: pumpkin spice season, which begins during what used to be back-to-school days, which in turn starts in the middle of the summer. It’s all to make way for Halloween merchandise, which has been available for weeks already, and then soon enough, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations.

A few pumpkin spice items for sale seem part of an elaborate practical joke, a social experiment to see if people will buy anything flavored with the heady mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger: cookies, beer, doughnuts, coffee, toaster pastries, crackers, caramels, Greek yogurt, tortilla chips, instant oatmeal, biscotti, dog treats and more — all descendants of the Pumpkin Spice Latte that the mad scientists at Starbucks first rolled out in 2003.

I must admit, I’m partial to pumpkin ice cream, and every other month or so, not just in autumn, the twins ask me to make “choo-choo cakes,” spiced batter baked into mini train cake molds. I bought the pan for a themed birthday when they were toddlers, and the cakes have become a staple in our household. The twins love to help, especially when they get to crack the eggs and wildly sprinkle in the spices.

You can sometimes forget that fall has arrived in the Bay Area, when the skies above the beaches are sunny, no longer banked in by fog, and people sunbathe in parks. In other parts of the country, the first snow has fallen. I’ve still been swimming daily laps in the outdoor neighborhood pool — which doesn’t close until the end of the month — but very often, I’m pushing aside dead pine needles that have tumbled in. By the end of the afternoon, the pool is in shadow, the water cool beneath the warm surface. As I stroke through, I’m reminded of the John Cheever story “The Swimmer,” about the man making his way from pool to pool across the county, as the day time-lapses from summer to fall.

“Going out onto the dark lawn he smelled chrysanthemums or marigolds — some stubborn autumnal fragrance — on the night air, strong as gas. Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer?”

Even though the days remain warm in the Bay Area, evening takes on a chill, the air crisp, and darkness falls earlier. We’ve been getting up in the dark before school.

“It’s still nighttime,” we tell the twins when they wander into our bedroom.

“Night is taking so long!” Gege protests.

And it’s only going to get longer. The shorter days have been making me feel nostalgic for the summer that went by so quickly — even though it seemed interminable back then, a frantic confusion of day camps and vacation, constantly changing schedules squeezed in between work deadlines.

We’d like to go camping one more time this year, but will the weather hold? A forlorn bag of marshmallows sits in our cupboard, waiting to be turned into s’mores. Autumn obligations have also resumed: Saturday soccer games, after-school classes, and work conferences and events that went on summer hiatus. The weeks go by in a blur, and though I appreciate the return to routines, as a working parent, I can barely keep up. It’s a mad dash to get out the door each morning: Don’t forget the lunch, don’t forget the overdue library books, don’t forget school spirit day, don’t forget to drop off the donation for the fundraiser, don’t forget a jacket, sunblock and water bottle, so many things to keep track of before I even sit down at my desk.

There are three months left in 2017. Friends have told me they wished that this annus horribilis would come to an end. Earlier this week, the Las Vegas massacre — the deadliest shooting in modern American history, a record reset with tragic frequency — put many of us in despair. We’re furious too, that gun control efforts keep getting thwarted by the National Rifle Association and their supporters in Congress.

But this week also marked the MidAutumn Festival, when Chinese families celebrate the harvest and gaze up at the beauty of the unblinking moon, and Koreans gathered for Chuseok, paying respect to their ancestors and feasting together. The change of seasons is a reminder of the natural forces bigger than any one of us, the forces that preceded us and will someday outlast us, oblivious to the chaos humanity wreaks. The Earth tilts on its axis, spinning around the sun in yet another revolution.

The change of seasons is a reminder of the natural forces bigger than any one of us.