August

"Let August be August." *
When America began sending kids back to school before Labor Day, that was my reaction: let August be August. The summer is only just past its peak, and it feels unnatural and somewhat cruel to put children in classrooms when autumn is still so many weeks away.
But mid-August in Transylvania hits differently than it does in California. Here the mornings are already crisp and long angles of sunlight fill the afternoons. As I sit on the patio in the warmth of early evening I see an occasional leaf fluttering, yellow and spent, from the oak tree. The apple trees are growing heavy with fruit, and the markets are overflowing with tomatoes, eggplant, and corn.
Here, even though autumn is brushing against the edges of the day, children don't return to school until the first week of September so the sounds of their play still drifts through the windows long after the sun has set. They're soaking up every last ounce of freedom the summer has to offer, which is as it should be in August.

Along with hints of autumn, mid-August has also brought us our first international guests—Joe and Stephanie have come to us from San Francisco (by way of Italy where they were vacationing first).

So far we've taken them to the major cities in the region, namely, Sighișoara

Brașov

and Sibiu.

This is a short post because sight-seeing doesn't leave a lot of time for blog writing but now that we're finished being tour guides, we'll stay home and give them a taste of what real life is like around Villa Ionescu. That means we'll be repotting plants, going to the market, and taking lots of walks, all of which Joe says he's eager to do since he enjoys living like the locals.
In the next post I'll share the excitement of the repotting and walking and whatever else we get up to.
So until next week, I hope that you can find something interesting or novel to do while you embrace the joy mid-August can bring.
Thank you for reading.
Be well.

*From Morgan Harper Nichols who wrote, "Let July be July, and let August be August and just let yourself be, even in the midst of uncertainty. You don't have to fix everything, you don't have to solve everything. You can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things."