We’re officially over the hump of summer. It feels like the beginning of the school year is creeping up quickly, and there are all those things I’d planned to get done in July…what exactly happened to July? I’ve always had mixed feelings about this time of year. The evenings are beautiful, the prairie flowers and grasses are tall and bright, coexisting in a densely crowded, field ecosystem. The farmer’s market is ripe with fruit and vegetable harvests. There are school supplies and fall clothing in the stores. In general, I am in on the growing communal excitement over a new academic year, new classes, making new syllabi, ordering books.
On the other had, there is a mild malaise that often sets in about now. I’m generally broke by the end of July, no matter how hard I saved, most of my friends are out of town traveling, and I begin to look back on the summer and realize that I haven’t tackled half the projects or accomplished half the goals I set out to. Or even a third. My book isn’t contest-ready, as I’d hoped it would be, I never got that head start of my prelim reading, and I didn’t get back in shape by biking everywhere either. And there are tasks that take priority over even those personal projects: work for the Sycamore Review and for the Purdue OWL, for example. The start-of-summer energy has dwindled, and all my time off thus far feels like a bust.
The year is waning, the moon is waning. For now I’ll blame that. Wednesday is another New Moon–our eighth invitation to make a fresh start this year.
