Crewel Crewel Summer

Another beautiful crewel piece that embodies the end of summer, with just a bit of light wear on the main base of the item. Do you remember the last long weekend of summer before going back to school? It's entirely possible the dates are different now with decades of time added and regional differences. I know not everyone heads back to school the first week of September but when I was a child and in the Ontario public school system, that was the plan and it was always bittersweet.

Gone were the days of aimless bicycle riding, exploring the woods and dumping an entire rainy afternoon into a game, either of board or video format. Sunsets get shorter and appear earlier in the evening. Those lush bushes you hacked your way through with a make shift machete made of, well, a branch or something available on the ground all start to turn colour. The greenery fades.

There was a slight bit of excitement knowing you'd be seeing a bunch of people again that you didn't get to see over the summer holiday. Maybe they bussed into school from the next town over or came from the type of family that spends those two months vacationing. Do you remember the feeling on a regular Monday morning when you update those closest to you with what happened over the weekend? Tales of that gnarly wipeout you took biking to the public pool, that episode of 'whatever' that aired on Sunday night. After the summer, you've got an entire two months of catching up to do. And as I mentioned before, it was always bittersweet. 

The town I grew up in would traditionally host a Fall Fair that last weekend of summer. They would have livestock associated competitions, markets for local artisans and the dodgiest of carnival rides. (SUB- Conklin Entertainment quality if you know the score). 

I remember I started becoming aware around the age of 9 or 10, of the idea that "I haven't got many of these left". I believe I got hired at my first real clock in/clock out job the week I turned 15 years old, which was the youngest legal age you could work at McDonalds. A mere five years later and those summers were already gone, yet cruelly I  couldn't even grow the shadow of a mustache. 

Now, as an adult living in North America, you just work. The idea of a 'summer holiday' seems foreign and one that belongs to a completely different class of people. But that last long weekend of the summer, usually falling on or around the cross over dates of August and September, remains a blurry, bittersweet bite of nostalgia and reality.