It’s August and it’s hot across most of the country.

We’ve had a few weeks of 90 F temperatures here in Puget Sound – with another heat-up coming next week.

But this past week there was that touch of autumn in the air.

It was faint; only a particular chill in a breeze while standing under the shade of trees. It was enough of a reminder that we’re not far away from my favorite time of year – autumn.

It’s something I’ve felt every year I’ve lived in the Northwest – and it’s always felt in August.

I’ve long thought it was just nature’s way of giving us a heads up if we’re paying attention. And that heads up is to live in the moment because time is passing – something I didn’t always understand.

Look around.

Even on the hottest days, the sun has begun to shift a bit to the south and the light is changing. The hours of daylight are much less than they were a few months ago – in Puget Sound, we’re seeing about 90 minutes less each day this week than in June – by the end of next month it will be three hours less each day. Mornings can be a bit cooler.

Back-to-school sales are going on and schools will be starting over the next several weeks; the NFL has started its preseason; there’s already Halloween merchandise starting to show up in stores (very soon to be replaced by Christmas items).

Home projects are being worked while the weather is dry and warm.

Our neighbors’ vacations are underway – for parents, the last chance to get away before the start of the school year.

All are reminders that summer is quickly slipping past, and it would be easy to look ahead at the expense of the now.

But we shouldn’t give in to the notion that summer is over – at least not yet. There’s still time to sit out and feel the warm sun on your skin. To appreciate the flowers and birds. To see, at least around here, skies that are more consistently blue than cloudy gray.

Time is passing, and it’s critical to recognize it’s the only thing we really have.

When I was a child, it seemed that summer was endless.

To the best of my recollection, we were off three full months from Catholic elementary school (June through August – with school starting the first week in September). The excitement of being away from school was highest in June with anticipation of all the things we could do – by August, our excitement was fading with boredom as play itself had become tiresome.

The fluidity of time was barely understood, but surely felt, as our perceptions of it changed during those summer months.

Later as we grew older and made our way through life, time was measured not in the passing of seasons, but in the pressures of meetings and schedules, parenting, children’s making their way through school years, holidays, and the loss of older loved ones.

Then an illnesses or retirement was faced, and once again we saw again (and perhaps finally understood) the fluidity of time; that it had passed even quicker than we understood as we made our way through the years.

But we still have today, as the significance of the whisper of autumn is finally understood. It’s most profoundly stated in the book of Ecclesiastes (3:1-8): To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

It may have taken a lifetime, but the ending of our summer means each day is to be treasured, and shared, with those we love.