THE END OF SUMMER

Well, all good things (and bad) must come to an end and so summer '24 is on its way out like a tide dragging its tiny feet against the shore. Of course, some look forward to turning the page on summer; others feel a pronounced sense of dread as if they're entering some kind of tunnel of darkness where they'll find no light at the end until spring next year.

As for me, these final days of August bring to mind Neddy Merrill from John Cheever's 'The Swimmer', as he swims through the dappled turquoise pools of his neighbours back gardens in late summer before the driving rain and swirling leaves of impending autumn finally greet him at his derelict, bordered up family home. Standing outside the door to his house in just his swimming trunks, Neddy Merrill may just be the perfect literary metaphor for the raging against the dying of the summer of youth before entering the September of our years.

Gatsby's green light across the bay also flashes in my mind's eye as I remember his final swim in his luxury pool before it's drained (a symbolic metaphor of his life, wealth and summer). What is this strange place, this twilight place of the soul between summer and autumn where our dreams slowly fade with the light? The author of 'The Great Gatsby' F. Scott Fitzgerald always captured so exquisitely these unsettling transitions.

Then again, I also think of Matt Dillon in 'The Flamingo Kid' (1984) where after a summer working and having fun at the Flamingo Club in Long Island, the young man returns to his father and family at 'Larry's Fishhouse' ('any fish you wish') seaside restaurant in Brooklyn and reconciles with the idea of a more pragmatic future than the one that summer tantalisingly promised for him. The end of August often recalls that pervasive sense of having to go back to school, a job, a life far removed from the grandiose, cloudless dreams that we were tricked into believing might finally change our predictable course on the path of life. September leading into Autumn can often feel like returning to the jailhouse of reality where it is now time to put away the buckets and spades and get back to the daily grind.

And predictably for me, summer (like all seasons) has been all about choosing the right music and so after months of blasting 1950's Doo-Wop, Italian operas by Puccini ('La Rondine', 'Gianni Schicchi') and Verdi ('Otello', 'La Forza'), soundtracks such as 'Chinatown' and 'The Long Goodbye' by composers Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams, I am now looking to transition into my September into autumn mode and that almost inevitably means Sinatra. And wouldn't you know it, he has an album for almost every emotion and every season and 'September Of My Years' (Reprise) seems perfectly suited to the month that many refer to as 'Harvest Month'. Certainly I'll be harvesting emotions as I play this morose masterpiece shortly and wonder if I'm now Neddy Merrill, standing at the bolt-locked door of opportunity and life.

But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself so will maybe hold back on pulling out the melancholy 'September Of My Years' just yet and channel more the 'American Graffiti' (1973) end of summer type of vibe where, just like August, the mysterious blonde (Suzanne Somers) in the T-Bird who lingers momentarily at a set of traffic lights as Richard Dreyfuss ('Curt') tries to attract her attention disappears into the long night like a dream you can never quite catch up to and the 'Skyliners' sing your heart's sorrow on the radio.