August Nights

It's a balmy evening here in the T Dot, the T.O., the TeeRonToe. It's a calm, mellow night. A person gets used to the heat in August. August is the middle age of summer, July's older sibling. September is the dutiful eldest of the summer bros. September, bah, too serious.

The sun feels a little rounder in August, the twilight gleams a little earlier. I was bounding up the subway stairs at around 8:45 the other night, emerged onto Yonge street and was positively enchanted by the wash of  pale yellow light. That's right people, I was enchanted. Let me rephrase that --- that's right one person who might be reading this because you accidentally stumbled upon this blog -- I was enchanted.

It's the transient appearance of subdued light that keeps me from talking on a cell phone or texting outdoors.

I remember light. I remember its particulars. I remember the incandescent light in the bathroom from my childhood, the way it brought out the beige hue in the pink tiles.

My mind is a daguerreotype.

August is full. It is the after-dinner yawn, the content belly, the drowsy peace.

By the way, August Nights is a wonderful collection of short stories by the late, great Hugh Hood. On a night like tonight, where the moon is new with possibilities and the air is plump and still, luxuriating in Hood's prose seems like the perfect nightcap.

Who needs beer?

Not me. Not when there are stars in a full August sky. My thirst is quenched.