I don’t remember when summer started, but I can feel it leaving. That’s probably because I’ve been lost in the haze of managing both of my parents’ health care crises all summer.
Maybe it’s the way the light is changing now, earlier in the evenings, softer and flatter by 7:30. I can feel the change in my chest, the same familiar ache that shows up every August, the one I’ve had since school days. A reminder that time doesn’t wait, that whatever I thought I’d do hasn’t been done yet.
I wrote in my journal today that I thought I’d get more done this summer.
That’s a sentence that lives in my head. It comes with guilt. Projects I’ve started and stalled. Books I planned to read but never opened. Emails I owe. Photographs I never took. I’ve been swamped with work at my job, plus caring for both of my parents, and the art center’s needs. When I’m not doing those things, I’m tired. I rest, or I scroll, or I sit in the quiet with a blank stare and a cooling cup of coffee. Then I think: this is wasting time.
But maybe it’s not.
Maybe downtime is the time. Maybe it’s the compost. The unstructured moments where things grow in secret, when no one’s watching, not even me. It lives in the space between effort and retreat, where ideas drift in slowly and quietly. I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I know I’ve been thinking more in photographs again. I’m carrying my camera more often. I’ve been jotting notes that might turn into essays. I’ve been reading Joan Didion and thinking about writing like a record, not a performance.
I want to spend more time alone. Not lonely. Just alone. Uninterrupted. Disconnected from the constant feed of tasks, updates, opinions, and the algorithm. I want to walk down a quiet street in a small town, past hand-painted signs, with a camera and no goal. I want to take a day off without needing to earn it.
There’s still time for that. A little, anyway.
August isn’t over. There’s still heat in the afternoons and sweat on my back after walking to the mailbox. The rhythm of the world is shifting again. There are still a few golden hours left. Maybe I’ll take them. Maybe you should, too.
We don’t owe the summer a list of accomplishments. We don’t owe it clarity, transformation, or proof. Maybe all we owe it is a little attention. A photo. A walk. A full breath of dry air in the evening.
That’s not wasted time. That’s time well spent.