Summer's Going Going Gone

Where did summer go? I ask myself this as we enter our fourth straight day of clouds and rain here in Ismayilli. After two months of virtually no clouds or rain, the last few weeks have been filled with both.

It's amazing to me how similar the end of summer here feels compared to the end of summer back home. Now, I love summer. I'm good at summer. I close my eyes and remember running around Summerhill pool with our group of swim team friends, which we dubbed the Summer Hill Mafia. Later, I was a lifeguard all through high school and college, working at the neighborhood pool, and then at a summer camp where I guarded OUR lake and taught canoeing and (not)fun-yaking, a sort of open kayak. Even though we had fun complaining about the bossy patrons, savored every last thunderstorm, and wanted to push certain campers off a high ledge at times, those summers were bliss, and as a result, summer is automatically a special season for me.

But now summer is over. Random cold days with clouds recall to my mind days when we would wear sweats by the pool and pray that we wouldn't have to get up in the lifeguard chair, somehow always foiled by the one boy trying to eek out as much pool time as he could before school started again. The familiar feeling that everyone has left for college has been replaced by the loss of visitors, from the US and from other rayons. This weekend, Alexander, a Danish man working through British Councils at the vocational school in town will leave, making Ismayilli just a little bit emptier. They've all done some good work there, and hopefully we'll be able to build on the foundations which he started.

With the coming school year brings a move for me. Today I vacated my summer room and made the long trek through the house to my winter and spring room and kitchen. Soon, the students who rent the summer room will be back from the village, ready to start their school year here in Ismayilli (where they are able to get a better education). I came to Azerbaijan with two bags and a carry-one. I don't know where all this stuff came from, let me tell you. It's like everything had babies while I wasn't looking.

It's not all bad, of course. September means the chance to implement new clubs and ideas that my students last spring suggested and I couldn't get up and running during the summer. It also means that in one month, 40 new volunteers will be arriving in Baku to undergo training. The application process to help out during PST has begun. There's even a chance that come December, we'll be getting a new volunteer here in Ismayilli, though I'm going to try not to jinx it and will henceforth assume it won't happen.

Summer's ending always feels like the end of an era to me. It doesn't get any bigger than summer for me, with summer camps, grand adventures and expeditions, and close friends. If and when I enter the real world and have a job that involves working year-round, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but there will always be a part of me that will miss the power of doing nothing while doing something that only summer can allow. I'm tempted to segue now into an examination of what it means to grow up, but this piece has gone on for awhile now, and the Peter Pan in me is telling me to go play with Bucky outside while we still can.