“August isn’t over!” the faculty member cautions me, his index finger raised to emphasize the point. September 5, the first day of the fall semester, and it is clear that I’m not the only one in denial.

I saw his point, howéver — or thought I did: summer is a state of mind, and as long as we continue to believe in summer, then our summer attitudes, that addictive blend of nonchalance, unfounded hope and (yes) denial, will continue to exist as well. Perhaps: by acting together we can ensure that summer will maintain its forward momentum; and keep it barreling along at such a rate of speed that the equinox is indefinitely postponed. Maybe: all it takes is a collective act of will to ensure that summer truly is (in Camus’s words) invincible. Perhaps.

And yet I find myself squeezing summer lately; or more precisely: squeezing into what remains of summer everything that I did not manage to accomplish during those pre-dog days of July and early August. Bard on the Beach, for instance; we always take in at least one of their productions. Because it is such a perfectly summer-in-Vancouver thing to do. Bundled up and snuggled together in a pair of front row (if we can get them) seats; “all the world’s a stage” and real mountains for a backdrop providing proof. How can September find us Bardless still, and the stage itself about to fold its tents and slip away?

And corn: we have not yet eaten sufficient corn to call it another summer! But at one West Van fruit stand this weekend (in fruitless search of a sympathetic ear or two) we hear that “the corn season is finished” for this year. Have I, then, already had my last fresh-picked cob without knowing it? I would have eaten it more reverently, if I had known.

Tonight J and I are going to a ball game at Nat Bailey Stadium with two nephews. While neither of us are fervent fans of the sport, it has become one of our small traditions to try and take in at least one game a season in that neighborly stadium, tucked neatly beneath the leafy shade of Little Mountain. Sitting high up in the bleachers on the hard wooden (cheap) seats that overlook the first base line; eating our hot dogs and hamburgers from waxed foil wrappers: quick! before they cool; eyeing and eavesdropping on the rituals that have always accompanied the game: the seventh-inning stretch; the 50-50 draw; the chatter (“Battah-battah-battah; Attaboy; Itty-bitty-ball”) — passed down from season to season eternal and unchanged.

Together we will watch and wait, hoping for one of those rare epiphanies that are signalled by the hickory-crack of a well-hit pitch. The imperceptible pause; and then the electrifying implications of it clear. Watching as — in evident slow motion — the ball arcs up unalterably through the bright white field lights, until it — finally! — winks out against the overarching dark. Sinking — unseen now, but clearly imagined — though the soft, cool shadows that are always in wait beyond the outfield fence.

Home run. Going. Gone.