The summer is technically not over yet. We have a little over two weeks left. I wonder where it has gone; I wonder this every year. But this year in particular. There were so few waves, so few days spent at ocean from morning til night, eyelashes salty from being in the sea for so long.

But for all intents and purposes, the summer is over. The majority of the tourists have left. Simple trips to the grocery store are much easier. There are no longer long lines at Iggy's and Aunt Carrie's. There are stragglers for sure, people after my own heart who are hanging on to summer, but it is fall almost, because it is quiet. Soon the air will smell like falling leaves and wood stove smoke, but right now we are at that in between time where dense fog banks roll in because the ocean water is still warm but the air is getting cooler. It is a bittersweet, fleeting time. A melancholy time.

And so today I went to one of my favorite quiet places and watched the boats emerge from the fog while summer inched just a little further away.