Walking home last night about 10 PM across Hawerlak Park noticed a definite chill in the air, smattering of first yellow leaves and lingering regret as I realized that this Blues weekend was the last of my summer festivals. Very soon and perhaps too soon, is coming the shifting of the seasons as late summer lapses into the shorter, cooler days of autumn.

Finding that I want to cling to the richness of summer as the words in the recently added video:

’These are the days of the endless summer

These are the days, the time is now….

These are the days now that we must savour

And we must enjoy as we can

These are the days that will last forever”

As I reflect on this summer in Edmonton and not working in the arctic there has been both joys and challenges.

One of the joys has been to see a full season of growth in my yard with nodding sunflowers, Evans cherries after a night of rain and tomatoes soon ready to harvest. Mixed has been both of the dogs from lazing in the yard to runs in the park or at the farm.

Of course the recovery from the hip fracture has been painful and much longer than expected, challenging my self-image as the independent woman….in mid July I wrote in my journal

“I absolutely hate it when it gets to late in the day and I have no energy left to tackle those things that need to be done like the pile of papers in the office. So what am I going to do over the next hour just vent!!! Big picture things are good…summer and Amelia visiting and decision to try and let the minor things go….can live in the middle of a muddle…keep my cool! Minor irritants: basement wet again due to too much rain and too much time in the car driving of late. I want to nap and go to yoga tonight.”

But there have been gifts as well especially in relationships with others, from conversations shared with other patients and health care staff in Nunavut and Ottawa; helping neighbours who cut my lawn or swimming friends who bought groceries, church members who added my name to the prayer list, my sister who called frequently and to my daughter Amelia who deferred exams to fly west in May to help set up my house and then returned over the summer.

Amelia has an expression of those close to her, whether friends or family, living close or in another continent, as “ her people “ and I think this summer I discovered WITH THANKS again “ my people’’.