At Summer’s End

By Ky Pontious, 1st Year ETA

In Florida, the year passes in a humid haze. We eagerly look forward to and then reminisce about the handful of chilly days in an endless cycle. Everything is green. It is hot. We sweat. We blast the air in the car to cool our leather seats. We cover our eyes and squint against the sun as we lumber into the store. Then, hurrying back with our groceries, we try to outpace the beads of sweat perched on our temples. Our routines are as steadfast as the summer surrounding us.

In one unendingly vibrant season, a year can blend into two or three, slipping away. Unrooted, I forget to observe, drifting past opportunities to make landmarks in time and memory. As I circle the sun again and again, I have found that the most dismissible and cliché refrain is true: each year passes faster than the last.

This realization sits on my shoulders like a yoke.

And with the start of a new year, I find myself blown across the planet. My arrival to Punggi is frigid; the silent landscape a mystery that feels tightly closed against me. But as I move through it, I notice that I have traded crows for magpies. I look down and there are no small lizards skittering across the sidewalk, no squirrels scrambling up every tree. The howling winter wind pierces my coat with a determination I have never felt before.

Having been steeped in shades of green my entire life, the cold gray seems to linger. But as the ice eventually recedes, a new visitor arrives, bringing color. It is spattered here and there in the distance, then suddenly it is everywhere. Cherry blossoms line the roads and their petals collect in the gutters like snow. They turn familiar trees into strangers. Then, as abruptly as they appeared, they vanish. I wonder if I will remember the distinct sound of those bloom-laden boughs swaying in the wind. Their transience is a reminder that each experience has a first and last, with the timing of the latter almost always a mystery. Will I be here to greet them again next year?

Surrounded by spring, that lingering cold suddenly seems like a memory from long ago. I feel a new responsibility to keep every observation close. If I am to be under this yoke, heaving my memories through the years, I want my burden to be a heavy one.

This responsibility is bittersweet. In the open tranquility of the countryside, I find not an absence, but a bounty. I begin cataloging the plants, insects, and animals I encounter, each adding new meaning to the landscape. My walks become punctuated with pauses, and sometimes I even find myself running late. Had there always been so many kinds of flowers in the world? Just there — growing against the sidewalk’s edge — a violet blossom I then learn is named the “balloon flower.”

While eating lunch one day, my co-teacher leans over and says,“This side dish is called ‘doraji.’’’ He shows me a picture. It is like seeing a friend I was not expecting. I lift it to my mouth and taste the root of that violet flower that had previously caught my eye, inspiring me to unearth its name.

So this is Punggi? 

Neon spiders waiting in their webs and ripened persimmons breaking open on the pavement. Morning glories blooming in purple, blue, and red, then closing against the oppressive summer sun. Rows and rows of apple trees frame the fog-draped mountains. I greet them all as I walk by, despite never knowing when will be the last time. 

This trip around the sun feels different. I am in a new place, but through its many changes, Punggi slowly reveals itself to me. The spring cuckoo outside my window, once as dependable as the early-rising sun, has gone silent. Instead comes the shrill unified hum of cicadas, always just out of sight. As I walk through town, I step on a single fallen ginkgo nut and feel that summer is ending.

[Featured photo by Wendy Owens]