August in Alaska

Denali National Park in August

In the Land of the Midnight Sun, August is a great month. The flowers and garden vegetables are at their giant, oversized peak (the award winning cabbage at the fair this week was 66 pounds!), the mosquitos are gone and it is dark enough to sleep during the middle of the night. However, there is something lurking just beneath the surface, something cold and dark.

Today I read an interesting article by Fairbanks resident Tim Mowry, who described exactly what I have been feeling lately.

"Every year, I wake up one day in August and suddenly realize summer is almost over. It is at that moment that I take on a burden that is shared by so many other Alaskans in August. It is a burden we all bare (sic) by living in the Last Frontier, where winters are too long, summers are too short and we're too stupid to know the difference...I have not been able to come up with a cure for this annual Alaskan affliction that is otherwise known as August."

Sing, it Tim! He is so right. I can just feel winter peering over my shoulder, blowing cool, dark winds past my ear and whispering under its icy breath, "I will be there sooooooooon."

Like just about every other Alaskan, I feel like I have squandered the summer. I didn't get to Valdez! I didn't go salmon fishing! I didn't eat dinner outside every night (or much more than 3 nights, to be honest). I didn't take a nap in the hammock, or water my flowers very often, or even move the dead christmas tree further out into the woods-- I can still see it from the deck. I can't believe the mosquitoes are already gone for the year. It was probably our last summer in Alaska and I didn't go up to Eagle Summit on the longest day of the year to watch the sun NOT set. I never made it to the Brooks Range, or in a float plane John could pilot. I kick myself this time every year for all the things I didn't do.

In the spirit of optimism, however, I will say that I didn't waste every day. I managed to visit Anchorage and Seward, do the Midnight Sun Run, see the Golden Days Parade, attend the Tanana Valley Fair, sit in the hammock once or twice, go to the Chena Lakes "beach" and eat outside on my deck furniture a few times. I am grateful for every experience I have had in Alaska, even if it is as small as looking out my bedroom windows and seeing nothing but green trees.

On the bright side, I dearly love fall. It is my favorite season. Unfortunately, here in Fairbanks it lasts approximately two days, and I am just not ready for it to arrive! So, we have come to the part where I vow to make the most of the few weeks of summer that are left, but I know better. I know I will probably continue doing exactly what I have been doing--walking around the neighborhood in my capri pants and feeling glad that it is warm enough to do so.