July has come and gone and August has arrived, greeting us with a gentle reminder that summer’s end is close by. The opportunities to indulge in the bountiful offerings of the season are quickly passing and August knows we should not waste them away.

In summer we have our children close to us. The daily routine of school and homework no longer fastens us to a hectic schedule that leaves little or no time for quiet talks in the back yard or drawing chalk pictures on the sidewalk. Our life is filled with wet towels from the pool or the beach, and picnic lunches. We snip fresh flowers or herbs from the garden each morning and wait on the front steps each night for the rhythmic chime of the ice cream truck. We weave our shoeless toes through freshly cut, wet grass and watch as our children turn a golden, freckled brown.

In summer, we have time to read. We don’t have to skim the newspaper headlines as we down a quick cup of coffee and rush off to the office. We can follow the steps of John Adams in McCullough’s book as the American patriot trudges through the snow for weeks on end to attend a meeting of the Continental Congress or follow him and his young son on a voyage across the Atlantic to shore up the support of France and Spain for the Revolution. We can feel the looming terror of the end-of-term Ordinary Wizard Level exams of Harry Potter and cringe at the growing threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. We can follow a mystery, find inspiration in a biography or gather snippets of poetry in the vast harvest of books open to us.

In summer, we have a world of sunshine and warmth around us. We can enjoy our golden beaches or the crisp, clean water of a pool. We can bike through paths that glisten with the light that peeks through the trees, and we can sit beneath a starry night and watch a movie on the lawn at Town Hall. We can wear floppy hats against the sunshine, barbecue before the mid-afternoon rain and take glorious shelter from a searing heat in an air-conditioned movie theater or shopping mall.

Some would say it’s not so, and they talk about noisy children and outdoor chores and heavy loads of laundry. They bemoan traffic on the streets and endless days without structure. They find little to revel in and lots to make them anxious and worn. They long for the first day of school and the last day of summer almost as much as they longed for the last day of school and the first day of summer. They spend their time looking at what is so wrong and missing what’s so right.

August, the grand majestic month, is wise and knowing. Time is passing, she reminds us, and summer will shortly give way to the real life we live— while we wait for summer.

If you haven’t spent carefree time with your kids, or read a good book or taken a bike ride or sat in a cool movie with a big bag of popcorn; if you haven’t donned a floppy hat and gone out to pick strawberries or laid down on freshly cut grass and looked at the stars, August is reminding you those wonderful chances to savor life are quickly passing you by.