The air feels better this morning than it has in three months. There’s no heavy moisture hanging over my head and steaming up my arm pits. It’s not really cool, cool. But I don’t need the fan blowing at sonic speed to be comfortable on my porch.

It’s that time of year when I start thinking about fall. I know better. There’s two weeks left in August. But I can’t help myself. You get a morning like this one and your mental faculties lose all sense of reality. Rational thought melts away. Common sense runs out the door.

My brain is telling me to hope.

There are some things that the human brain enjoys more than the sensation of eating banana pudding. I know that’s hard to believe. The spoon goes into the mouth. The pudding settles like silk on the tongue. The taste buds fire off neuro-sensitive information to the brain. And the brain tells the face to smile.

As good as that is, what the brain seems to enjoy even more is playing tricks on itself. Like when it’s still mid-August and one lousy cool breeze comes along, and all of a sudden ridiculous, misleading, and dangerous kinds of ideas start surfacing after a long hot summer. The brain knows that the dogdays of late summer can kill a man in the blink of an eye.

But, no! The brain says, “It feels a little like fall.”

Like last evening.

Marion and I had worked in the shop all day. I mean a serious all-day-long effort like we really aren’t retired. About 2pm we came to a lull in the action. One project complete. Debating what to do next.

I remember saying, “It feels better in the shop today.”

Meaning my skin had not melted off my face and my drawers were not soaked through at the beltline.

“It’s hot, but not unbearable.”

Looking back, I now recognize that this was the beginning of the brain’s big tease.

By the time we finished up around 5pm, neither one of us felt like cooking. We each had only a small bag of cheesey snacks for lunch. Chessey snacks are the left-over pretzels and chips and Cheetos that fall off the conveyor belt at the plant. They sweep them up, put them into a bag together, and sell them as Cheesey Snacks.

Needless to say, we were hungry. We decided to try out the El Primo Mexican Grill in Hamilton. Mainly because it’s about three miles from the house. More than that, it was Monday and all of our other choices in Pine Mountain were closed.

We washed off most of the dust from the shop, put on a clean shirt, and headed into town.

Marion is driving, which allows my mind to wander more than it usually does when I’m driving. I’m noticing how clean and clear the sky looks. There’s absolutely no haze on the horizon. The colors are crisp. The blue is brilliant. The greens are vibrant.

I don’t say it out loud, but the thought enters my consciousness. “This looks like fall.”

There’s a jester, a jokester, inside every brain whose sole purpose is to whisper idiot ideas to the guy who owns the brain. He suggests things that are nearly impossible. Things that make no rational sense. Things that could cause injury or insanity, or possibilities that could lose large sums of money should a bet be placed without thinking it through.

My brain said to me one day, “I think you can fly.” We all know this is not true, but I was maybe 7 at the time. I had a cape tied over my shoulders which was, in fact, a bed sheet I had secretly borrowed from the hall closet. Capes are for flying. So, I climbed up in the hay loft inside the barn, stood bravely at the ledge of the large opening, and jumped.

The only thing that saved me was the pile of loose hay on the ground.

So, when my brain says to me that “this looks like fall,” I’m old enough to know better. I’ve learned my lesson. Boys can’t fly. Fall doesn’t come in August.

After we finished up our tacos, I was feeling like a little bit of ice cream might just be the right way to end the day. I got no argument from Marion.

There we sit in the shade of the front porch at the ice cream shop. One caramel and one hot fudge sundae, both with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Little old Hamilton may not have a grocery store or a hardware store or much of anything by way of personal conveniences, but the ice cream shop is a nice place to be on a hot summer day.

We’re chatting and talking about the oak mantle we made. Just guy/gal shop talk about sandpaper grits, and paste wax versus poly coatings when a breeze comes up. We both look at each other.

“Did you feel that?”

“I did.”

“It feels a little bit like fall out here this evening.”

“I know. It feels great.”

Personally, I think it’s okay to think of fall in mid-August. It’s not as far away as it was in June. It may not be as near as it will be, come Labor Day, but hey I’ll take the early teasers in stride and enjoy them whenever and however they come.

An evening in August that feels like fall is more than just a tease. It’s a taste of hope based on what we know to be true. The heat will end. Summer will pass. What seems like nothing more than a crazy idea at the moment will become reality, no matter how hard it is to imagine at the time.

Hope, next to love and faith, is one leg of the great trifecta of life.

No matter how complicated or uncertain, no matter how difficult or impossible life may seem, there is always hope. You can bet the farm on that. You may not be able to see how life is going to turn out. You may not be able to calculate all the odds. Your crystal ball is broken, but hope is there.

Here’s what I know. August doesn’t last forever. Storm clouds clear out. Broken hearts heal. Failure does not define us. Old memories always make room for new ones. Fear is no match for love. Hope is everywhere.

You just have to see it.

We went for a short drive after the ice cream. When we got back to the house the sun was almost gone. We loaded the mantle and a few tools into Marion’s truck. And by the time we let the big roll-up door down and turned out the lights in the shop, it was dark.

“We had a good day,” she said.

“We did.”

I hadn’t bothered to turn on the flood lights. It was quiet as we walked in the dark toward the house.

“It feels so good out here tonight. It won’t be long before it’s sweatshirt weather.”

“I know. Makes you feel hopeful, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

August won’t last forever.