Here we are in January. It's cold outside. This is how I get warm: I remember. I swim around the warm pool of memories, remembering summer, remembering August, and I start to think about what August means to me.
And I write:
Out of the three months of summer, the last one is my favourite. August is known for its balmy evenings and dewy mornings, and the smell of ripening fruit brought alive by the tiny droplets in the humid air. Maybe I am so fond of it, because I was born on such a pleasant August day. But August also has something wistful, yet appealing about it. It is the decline of summer, it is the Sunday of the summer months. It is the time to feel a bittersweet melancholy over everything which is soon to be gone - the warm days, that particular scent in the air, the lovers or mere passers-by, and the sunlight. August is for the sentimentalists, with me being one of them.
Illustration: pencil on paper
There is something so appealing about being sad in a fine weather. August provides all the conditions. It makes me think in poetry. That August sadness itself is poetry. It is a sonnet written by my yearning and the birds that fly over my head, the colours of a late sunset, and the buckwheats that breathe out fragrant fumes when I pass them by. I’ve thought about writing it down, but as soon as my pen touches paper, it’s gone. That sentiment escapes such limitations as my words. It’s a taste that you can detect on your tongue, but cannot describe it. It is the mother’s perfume that you remember her wearing, but cannot recall the smell of. August, then, remains a poem unwritten. The verses are pollen, washed away by sudden showers. The rhymes stick to the wings of the early migrators. The words hide in the restless ripening fields, and together with rye are to be reaped one day, and that is the end of the lyric.
Though I cannot take a firm hold of it, August stays a poem on my mind all year long. At times, it breaks out in a tune that I find myself humming and I recognize it, as that poem has turned into a song. It is a low croon of a blues song, it is a melody that sticks for a while, after it catches you all of a sudden. Particularly, during the cold season of the year, when other people catch cold, I catch the August blues.
Illustration: pen on paper
You could sit on the couch at your mom’s with a cup of peppermint in your lap and a pumpkin pie, and nothing else could make you feel so welcome and safe more than that moment. But a song plays on her CD player, and you hear a November rainfall starting behind the window, and while your thoughts are drifting to the past, something pangs you in the heart, a familiar pain. At first, it’s a prick of a needle, then one needle turns into a thousand. Finally, that something underneath your cozy sweater has already become an acupuncture session.
Perhaps, it’s my own inclination. It might be, I’ve considered, that while the August blues are hunting for me, I myself might have adjusted my path to meet them in my way. Perhaps, it’s natural, perhaps it’s necessary, perhaps it’s even good for one’s soul. Maybe everyone should connect with their melancholy sometimes. It is proven that acupuncture is beneficial in pain relief. Maybe the little needles in your heart, could, too, help in dealing with emotions. Take a moment to be sad, take a moment to let it all out, a moment so intense that makes you write in poems.
We might wish we could lead our lives knowing happiness only, because true happiness is such a satisfying, invigorating emotion. And what good does sadness, if it takes us away from that state of being happy? In a world where there are enough misfortunes, and enough reasons to be sad, what good does choosing to be another miserable person, besides the millions that find themselves in that state involuntary? But I believe it is essential that from time to time we connect with our heartaches. It’s an awfully human thing to do - to become sad so quickly and become consumed by that feeling. Yet, it is important to be able to see what beauty lies in it: of a genuine emotion, of a desire to express oneself, of the courage to face one’s own emotions.
So when I ask myself, what is this sadness that overcomes me so suddenly and so often, I need not fear - that might be the good old song of the August blues. I should not worry why am I this way, and is something wrong with me, as the answer is simply that I was born in August. I was born in the Sunday of the summer months, when people become sad about having to let go of the warm days and starry evenings, and summer lovers. I should not fear this emotion, and, by any means, I should not suppress it, for there lies a beauty waiting to be unravelled. August, my favourite month of the year, next time we meet, I shall write a poem about you.
Illustration: pen on paper
