POP-CULTURE COLUMN: To What Purpose Do You Return, August?
By Dan Brown Every month has its own individual flavour and character. Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once said April is like a babbling idiot coming down a hill scattering flowers. Funksters Earth, Wind and Fire sang about how September is the best month for dancing. And December struck Counting Crows as feeling like a lot of oysters but no pearls. Which brings us to the month we’re currently in. What is August’s personality like? For me, the eighth month on the calendar is mostly about regret. Perhaps you can relate. When July exits, the change triggers something inside of me. It’s like an alarm saying, “You have only one more month of summer left. Make it count.” Yes, I know autumn doesn’t officially arrive until the dying days of September, but I’ve been conditioned – from being a student, from working in the education sector – to fear and lament the onset of the school year. So this month is the time of year when I look back on all the high hopes I had at the start of May. I think about the things I planned to do in the summer. I consider all the promises I made to myself. I remember the feeling of sheer potential I experience every year when school finishes – this summer, I tell myself, I’m going to do stuff. I’m not going to waste the warmest months. I’ll have something to show for this interlude free from the duties of my second job, teaching. When the first days of August arrive, always too soon, I do some internal accounting. I try to figure out what I’ve done for the last three months by making a mental list of everything I accomplished. Did I make it up to the Grand Bend flea market and the Pinery? Did I spend all the time I could with friends? Did I visit the Mustang Drive-In? Did I eat every meal I could on a patio? Did we barbecue every opportunity we got? Did I read as much as I could in our sunroom, which is most comfortable in summer? In other words: What summer memories am I going to take with me from this year? As a stoic, I know it’s up to me to use the most precious resource of all, time, in a wise way. One day it’s going to run out. Maybe I’m overstating the case, but August may be the one month when I feel my mortality most acutely. As Don Henley once sang, “There are just so many summers, babe” so it’s incumbent on me to make the most of them. What makes this impulse even more urgent to me is the fact my mother died unexpectedly at the beginning of 2025. As a result, I’m painfully aware time is the only thing you can’t buy more of. I know what you may be thinking: “Sheesh, Dan, relax! Just enjoy the rest of the summer the best you can! Stop being so morbid!” Fair enough. But you know what? I actually turned my mental list into a real one. I got my journal out last week and jotted down what I’ve been up to. To my pleasant surprise, it turned into a long list. I discovered that I have actually acquitted myself well so far this summer, in the past 90 days I HAVE done my duty to myself to spend my limited time well. And the funny part is, I always feel the same regret and then the same relief in August. I AM doing my best. I always do. I keep forgetting that. What about you? Are you feeling any August regrets? What summer promises did you make to yourself that are unfulfilled at this point? What do you plan to do this month that you haven’t made time for yet? I would love to hear all about it in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
