Listening in August
This month can be an overload on the senses. As summer vegetables ripen, their colors seem to pulse. The skins on tomatoes and peppers give easy under our fingertips. Aromas linger. The air is thick, and life itself seems to swell from sunlight. Heavy, hot and colorful, the world is being baked into something savory. With its lushness and fullness, August is a great, seething, time of growth. August is enough to fill three months.
We can watch the plants grow by the day, sometimes by the hour. All of the living world is flourishing. In the afternoon, we see a sparrow hunt a moth in mid-flight. At night, we listen to the cicadas and frogs sing across the field.
Last weekend, my neighbor gave me, from his garden, a bunch of fresh lavender. I am grateful for this perennial, with its color returning every year at this time. The beautiful tall stalks of deep green with their tiny gray-green leaves hold an explosion of purple blooms. The fragrance is strong in my house, and in the mornings I find these little blooms along my counter as they let go of the stem. There is something to the flourish of August that almost requires letting go—branching out. In this gift of lavender, I see friendship, sharing, growth, and the brightening of a space. I find serenity in knowing all these gifts will return next year.
But these are not the only plants that remind me of August. Earlier in the spring he gave me garlic to plant, dried from the year before. I gave him my extra tomato and zucchini seedlings. Now we are both enjoying how these gifts have flourished. I harvested the garlic at the end of July, and as August begins, I am drying it and thinking of recipes to which it might be added. I can see the ripe tomatoes and zucchini in his garden, and I know he will be picking them soon.
Gardeners love to share their bounty with others. It is a natural part of why we garden. It gives us a reason to share stories with each other as we deliver flowers and produce. In all this sharing there is also a listening going on. These lavender blooms may be small insignificant things, in a way, but for me they are a strong symbol of the vibrancy of life in August. The best way to enjoy this is to listen. August. A flourishing. A listening--to ourselves, to the stories, to each other, to the earth. To everything.
May you have an August full of vibrant moments and deep connections.