I am a summer person; I was born in August. I love hot sun, steamy days and a garden humming with bees, butterflies and dragonflies. I crave the cricket music of warm nights and I can even tolerate the incessant racket of cicadas for awhile. Each year I promise my husband that I won’t complain and mourn the passing of summer. (His favorite season is autumn.) But, then the bounty of bees, the sweet smell of apples in the backyard, the spicy scent of chives, oregano, hyssop and other herbs all speak to me of the beauty of a season I don’t want to end.

The heartier sort of Minnesotans wish for autumn — and it is beautiful — but autumn’s arrival means that winter’s not far off. Shorts and a t-shirt are plenty of clothing for me, and I choose to be completely unfettered from jackets, boots, ear muffs and mittens for as long as possible.

On this first day of autumn, the temperature is in the 90s, the dew point is in the 70s and there’s a strong south wind. I’ll soak up the heat and humidity and enjoy all of the butterfly and bee activity in what remains of our garden: asters, black-eyed Susan’s, sedum, chrysanthemums, Joe-Pye weed, Japanese anemones and goldenrod. Today is a day of gratitude for summer’s gifts; a day to live in the beauty of the present moment.