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This is the time of year when the late afternoon sun, hanging lower in the sky as we ebb towards September, obliges me to move my laptop further to the right to escape the glare on the screen as it streams through the windows.

As with a dawn chorus of birds announcing spring come April, it’s the first sign of the turn towards a new season. I can’t wait. I noticed that same light lying differently across the fields last week as well. While spring approaches with a shimmering, silvery softness, autumn beckons with a tawny light, the color of a fawn.

I see you, little pots of chrysanthemums, all coppery red and yellow, offered by the local plant nurseries and grocery stores…I see the ‘Coming Soon! U-Pick ‘Em Pumpkins!’ roadside sign at the local family-run farm. And, of course, our town coffee joints (along with the obligatory Starbucks at Ingles) have added Pumpkin Spice lattes and cappuccino to their menus.

My friend Julie has already swapped out her tea towels for those full of fall festivities, as have neighbors who tend to decorate their mailboxes with little banners and flags.

I want to join you all. I truly wish to join you in happy anticipation of shrugging on your favorite sweater and snuggling into the sofa with a steaming mug of pumpkin spice whatever-the-heck-you’re-drinking, but I can’t— I just can’t. 

Because it doesn’t matter what the calendar says or how the sunlight slants across my table: we’ve suffering a span of mid-90-degree days unfolding like an incinerator.

August—and even September— in the south, I’ve learned, is rather like a cat taunting its prey before eating it alive. Oh, it says, giving you a few moments of blissful relief by sending noticeably cooler nights that have you proclaiming in the morning when you step outside, “Gosh! It’s almost chilly! I think I’ll put on a sweatshirt.” Only hours later, you’ll be pulled back into the horror of a blast furnace of heat by 1 pm.

“What was I thinking?” I wailed to Paul, gazing dismally at the crockpot of savory chili I’ve had simmering away in anticipation of a hearty bowl to warm me up after coming in from the night’s barn check. “All I did was walk to the barn and back and I can already feel the sweat trickling down my back. I can’t eat this; I’ll just make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.”

“You can’t waste that,” said Paul, searching for a comparison. There are freezing farmers in Finland. Why did you make it? What were you thinking?”

Opening the fridge, I stuck my head in the freezer and applied a bag of frozen peas to the back of my neck.

“Peer pressure!” I cried. “Pumpkin spice peer pressure!”