Nothing Gold Can Stay: The End of One Golden Summer

I miss summer.

But that isn’t quite accurate.

I miss the anticipation of summer—that moment when the whole season is still waiting for you with wide-open arms and a promise of sunny days and happiness. Before any of it has actually happened. Before you know which plans will work out, which ones won’t, or how quickly those long summer days will somehow disappear.

That was the moment we captured during our first Page to Palette visit to Lake Shenandoah in May, just three months before we returned for One Golden Summer.

In mid-May, we found a lovely, freshly mowed spot right beside the lake. There were toads calling nearby, bug spray keeping most of the other creatures at bay, and a dock waiting for us to light sparklers once the sun went down.

It was a Sunday evening. And yes, we all had to work the next day.

But summer was coming.

And we knew how much excitement still lay ahead.

At the time, we were eagerly awaiting the TV adaptation of Every Summer After. We hadn’t exactly loved the book, but that didn’t stop us from wanting to see those characters brought to life.

Sadly, the show disappointed us.

There were people wandering around Barry’s Bay who had no business being there. We struggled to see the characters we knew in the actors portraying them. And instead of finally seeing the story we had imagined on screen, we found ourselves wondering what exactly had happened to it along the way.

But none of that mattered yet in May.

Because that night, we were still excited.

We ate Tavern-inspired pierogies beside the lake. We made friendship-bracelet-style keychains and added charms by flashlight when it became too dark to see. We lit sparklers on the dock.

And we anticipated.

There was one thing, however, that carried with us from May all the way to August:

Charlie Florek is special.

He’s a gem of a guy. We preferred him to Sam in Every Summer After, and when we met him again in One Golden Summer, we decided Alice was exactly who he needed.

So, when August 29 arrived, I was excited to return to our little spot by the lake.

I was nostalgic before we even got there.

I wanted the same spot. The same company. I wanted to hear our toad friends again. And because the Tavern pierogies had been such a hit in May, I made an even bigger batch—this time adding onions and kielbasa, because that’s what Sue would have done.

Thanks to Dana, we even celebrated Alice’s birthday properly: a chocolate cupcake for everyone and a single lit candle.

There was also a granddaddy long leg involved in an unfortunate frosting-first cupcake drop onto Harlan’s leg.

It was, after all, still the lake.

Our little insect friends were everywhere, including one that led me to confidently confuse a grasshopper with a cricket as though I did not grow up outside.

And somehow, that felt right.

We met and introduced new friends. We reconnected with others. Our conversation hopped from one book to another as freely as the bugs hopped around us on the ground.

But we kept coming back to Charlie and Alice.

We talked about who we would cast if One Golden Summer ever made its way to the screen. We talked about the characters and the choices they made.

And then we made our own bucket lists.

In the novel, Alice finds herself thinking about being seventeen again—about returning to that summer and experiencing it all over.

So I wondered what would happen when we asked ourselves the same thing.

Would we want to go back?

Interestingly, none of us did.

No matter our current ages, no one seemed particularly interested in being seventeen again.

Instead, our lists looked forward.

They were about where we are right now and the things we still want to experience. Things that might help us explore who we are becoming. Things that might push us slightly—or significantly—outside our comfort zones.

Buy the dress.

And actually wear it out.

Find the tunnels under the quad.

Have high tea with the Highland cows.

And then came perhaps my favorite part: we promised to hold one another to them.

Did you buy the dress?

Did you find the tunnels?

Did you have that tea?

Maybe that is what I miss about summer.

Not summer itself, exactly.

I miss standing at the edge of it and imagining everything that could happen.

By the time we returned to Lake Shenandoah in August, we were standing at the other end. The summer we had anticipated in May had happened. Some things lived up to our expectations. Some definitely did not. Some plans probably never happened at all.

But there we were again.

Beside the same lake.

Eating pierogies. Swatting bugs. Celebrating a fictional birthday. Meeting new friends and sitting beside not-so-new ones. Missing the ones who couldn’t make it this time. Talking about books and characters and the lives we have lived—and the ones we still have time to live.

I can’t go back to that evening in May when the whole summer was waiting for us.

And, as it turns out, I don’t really want to go back to seventeen either.

What I want is to keep having things to anticipate.

Things that make me a little nervous. Things I’ve always wondered about. Things that make for good stories later.

And people who will ask me afterward, So, did you do it?

So this is me finally taking the time to look back on our last One Golden Summer evening by the lake, with new friends and not-so-new ones, and remembering the promise we made to push one another toward a life with adventure.

Or maybe it doesn’t have to be an entire life of adventure.

Maybe we just need to make sure there are some adventurous moments along the way.