Opinion | How Should We Mourn the End of Summer?

It comes gradually at first, then, like the Hemingway-ism, suddenly. Beach chairs fold up. Kayaks return to garages. Speculative camping trips remain just that. The plans and possibilities of summer cease.

The season’s conclusion can spark a sense of loss. That might sound like an overstatement, but as with any experience that ends too soon, there’s a sense that something has been missed out on, that feelings and moments remain just beyond our grasp. Underscored by popular, often misinterpreted concepts like “closure” and the “five stages” leading to “acceptance,” the standard American thinking around loss is to get back to the office, back to school, back to normal. Basically: Suck it up and move on. (Toss your summer whites to the back of the closet and forget about them.)

What would it look like to rethink this paradigm, starting with the summer? What might it mean to mourn its passing, to grapple with it instead of pushing ever forward?

It’s easy to get sighs and eye rolls when noting how, even compared with more traditionally respected losses, like the death of a parent, the passing of a pet might merit deep grief, or that there’s legitimacy in mourning something as abstract as the end of summer. But the truth is that loss is relative. If it’s significant to you, even if it’s about something intangible — like losing your sense of purpose or a state of mind or even your summer without feeling you’ve made the most of it — it’s legitimate. It’s not up to others to decide for you.

As the season comes to a close, I’ve re-upped my lapsed journaling routine. A few experiences I’ve found myself writing about: a trip to California to see my family and a crack-of-dawn walk along Stinson Beach; my first time watching professional bull riding, with the stranger next to me explaining its rules on a hot Cheyenne evening; a constellation of fireflies briefly following me as I walked home from the subway.

I found myself ruminating not only on what I’d done and what I’d missed but also on what I considered most important. Rituals like journaling, reflecting and mourning are fundamental to how we psychologically construct the past because they inform us of our values and what we want for our futures. What we do at present, of course, crafts the future. The Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu calls this “the process of fabrication.” That’s why the popular framework of pushing loss aside to just get on with life ultimately fails: The only way to create the life you want is to delve into the past.