Ram Dass said,
The next message you need is always right where you are.
Something changes in me on the first day of August.
Yesterday, summer felt like a season.
Today, it feels like a deadline.
Like the moment the captain announces the aircraft is on its initial descent.
You are still in the air.
But suddenly you can feel the ending coming closer.
So the list returns.
What happened to the beach trip?
What about those afternoons on the porch?
And those books you saved for summer. Are they still on the nightstand?
In June, the list felt like promise.
In August, it’s like a honey-do list.
Make it count.
By now even the good parts feel rushed.
You count off the remaining weekends, trying to fit more life into fewer days.
Before long, you are rushing toward relaxation.
Then the photos start appearing on Facebook.
Lakes. Tans. Beaches.
Golden families on golden docks.
It can seem as if everyone else remembered how to enjoy summer but you.
And there you are, behind on summer.
Behind on rest, of all things.
The one thing that cannot be rushed.
But perhaps the list is not evidence that you are behind.
It began as longing.
You wanted warm evenings with nowhere to be.
A little more room inside your life.
So your mind heard that longing and made a plan.
That is what minds do.
But while a plan can make room for an unhurried evening,
it cannot create one.
The list can tell you what you long for.
It cannot give them to you.
This is where Ram Dass’s words become more than comfort.
The next message is not waiting at the lake you did not visit.
You won’t see it at the bottom of the check list.
It is here. Now.
In this particular evening, however ordinary it appears.
So tonight, let one thing remain undone.
Put the list away. Sit outside, or beside an open window, for ten minutes.
Don’t try to make a memory.
Don’t try to improve August.
Let August be weather again, instead of homework.
The warm air does not know it is late in the season.
The crickets are not behind.
The light is not trying to make itself count.
And when the thought arrives, *Only four weekends left,* you do not have to argue with it.
Just finish the thought differently.
And this is one of them.
And I am in it.
Perhaps something in the body will soften.
Not because you saved the summer.
Because, for one evening, you stopped asking summer to be saved.
Tomorrow, the voice may return.
This is the last month. Use it well.
That is not a failure.
That is the practice.
For now, August is still here.
And so are you.
So be here, now.