The Green Leaves of Summer

Every year, I go through two periods of melancholy, one in June after the high feasts of spring, Easter and Pentecost, and one at this end of summertime. In Dutch we use the word ‘weemoed’, which is somewhat less sad than melancholy, and closer to the German ‘Sehnsucht’, the most romantic of all words. Etymologically you could try to translate weemoed as woefulness, but woe is a bit too sad in English. This limited sadness if of course related to our yearly duty to leave Lazy Tasty land and return to the land of cold, darkness and work, the land of reality.

We had a particularly wet summer season this year with the advantage that we could enjoy the green leaves of summer for so long. The link brings you to the song sung by the brothers Four, slightly different from the original soundtrack of the film The Alamo (1960), directed by John Wayne.

In the Ardennes, we could relive the school excursions we did at the age of ten. We did the walk along the river Hoegne as well as the walk on top of the Gileppe dam. It is a way to reconnect with the past, a way to reconnect with ourselves.

Picture: courtesy of Bernard Gastmans 2024