T.S. Eliot may have once convinced the world that April was the cruelest month, but these days I’m inclined to disagree. 

August takes all the hope of early summer and manages to crush it beneath a whirl of signs that fall isn’t just on its way — it’s inevitable. 

It begins quite literally at the beginning, as you flip the calendar and realize that June and July are now officially behind us, and Labor Day is charging at us with all the grace of an untamed bull hurtling toward a matador. 

According to a system of equinoxes and solstices created for us by the ancient Greeks, fall will not begin until September 22 this year. Yet another system created by modern meteorologists pegs the start of the next season on September 1. 

But it’s in August that fall begins to assert its dominance over the summer. 

The stores are filled with Halloween now, the same old bags of candy corn hauled out from the same old closets sitting beside this year’s array of sugary miniatures. It won’t be long now before the costumes arrive, and the kids begin planning out their big night of candy collecting. Leaves are already beginning to appear on the ground, and mornings dawn cool even when daytime heat is expected to rocket. You’ll hear the oil burner kick on one morning when the temperatures dip so low even your house is shocked, and inside you’ll let loose a silent scream. 

Pumpkin spice is back in the coffee aisle in August … and the cereal aisle, and the candy aisle, and why yes, that is pumpkin spice in the deodorant aisle. 

Soon soccer goals will be mounted in the fields, and little people in oversized uniforms will scurry around them in scrums as they learn to play as a team. 

And yet, for all the disappointments of August, its 31 days of summer are still ours for the taking. 

There’s still time for a few more trips down the river this month, still a few concerts left in the Bethel line-up, still nights left to be filled with firepits and marshmallows. 

Fall may be inevitable, but it’s up to us to make the most of the August we’ve got.