It seemed only yesterday that the summer of 2022 had
finally arrived with wave after wave of hot weather. But
now autumn is almost here. State Fairs across the
nation just precede the Labor Day holiday — and then
it’s back to school, even more political ads on TV and
radio, last visits to summer cabins and cottages,
baseball playoff slots come into view, football teams
begin practice, farm harvesting begins, wide-eyed
freshmen and women show up for orientation, and the
leaves begin to turn.
It seemed to go especially quickly this year! Was it the
aftermath of the pandemic that made it seem so? Or
was it something else? Does a particular age group
feel it more than others? Will autumn go as fleetingly?
As if to remind us that all is not rosy after our collective
ordeal of the past three years, the stock market had a
nosedive day, new pandemic cases appeared, and
prices are still going up and up and up.
The long view is that all of it is just another historical
cycle, similar to one or more which happened so long
ago we have forgotten them. That’s the long view, but
it is of little comfort, even if true, because it is also
possible that daily life as we have known it in these
past golden years might have indeed truly changed,
taking us into some new territory, perhaps not so
golden.
The haste of this past summer now leads us into an
unknown autumn, and perhaps a long winter. After
several millennia of so-called civilization, and
approaching our numbers to eight billions, it seems
unsettling that so many of us are still caught up in
deprivation, hostility and suffering in spite of all our
extraordinary technologies and scientific advances.
Everywhere the certainties and assurance most of
us grew up with are called into question. The leaves,
of course, will turn, but what about the human
patterns? How many children will go back to school?
Are colleges and universities worth attending? Will
downtown offices revive? Will goods and services
be available? Is it safe to be in a crowd? And so on.
And so on.
Spring and autumn are the most congenial seasons,
although Nature has a few tricks to play on us in even
these two intervals between the hot and freezing
seasons in the temperate zones.
Two of the oldest and closest allies of the U.S., Great
Britain and Israel, will choose new leaders before
winter comes, and right after that, Americans will go to
the polls to decide a very important future political
direction.
Perhaps the haste of the summer of 2022 has only
been an impatience, a restlessness, with so much of
what we have recently endured, with so much we
have to do.
Perhaps it something else.
Next spring seems so far away.
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Copyright (c) 2022 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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