There is a tendency to treat late summer as the end of something rather than a season in its own right.

August gets framed as the tail end of June and July, the part where summer winds down and fall begins its approach. The good part is assumed to be behind you. What remains is cleanup, preparation, the gradual relinquishing of one season to make room for the next.

But late summer has its own character, and it deserves more credit than it usually gets.

The heat is still there, but it sits differently than it did in June. The light has changed in a way that is hard to describe precisely but easy to notice. There is a golden quality to the light that was not there in July. The pace of things has shifted slightly. The urgency of early summer, the sense that you have to make the most of every warm day before they run out, has eased into something more settled.

Late summer is the season of knowing you are in a season.

You are aware of it in a way you were not in June, when summer felt endless. Now you can feel its edges. And that awareness, rather than being melancholy, can make you more present to what is actually here.

The tomatoes are at their peak. The evenings are still warm enough to sit outside but cool enough to be comfortable. The farmers markets are full. The days are long but not as relentlessly so. There is a particular quality of afternoon in August that belongs entirely to itself and to no other time of year.

Stay with it while it’s here.

Resist the urge to spend all of August preparing for fall. There will be time for that. Spend this season finishing what summer started.

The book you meant to read. The evening walk you kept meaning to take. The meal you wanted to cook with produce that will not be available in October.

Fall is coming. It always does. But it is not here yet. Stay in the season you are in.

You’ll notice more of it that way.