処暑

The heat gives up around the twenty-third of August. Not all at once, and not honestly — the afternoons stay punishing for weeks yet. But the evenings start letting go a little earlier, and once you've noticed that you can't stop noticing it.

処暑 means, roughly, *the heat withdraws*. The character 処 carries a sense of dealing with something, settling it. The summer isn't defeated. It's being seen out.

Japan has a whole practice built around this fortnight, and it has nothing to do with the calendar.

夕涼み is going outside in the evening specifically because it has stopped being unbearable. Not a walk with a destination — you stand on the balcony, or sit on the step, and let the cooler air happen to you. There is a word for it because enough people do it that it needed one.

It belongs to this fortnight more than any other. In July there is no evening cool to take. By October you'd want a jacket. 処暑 is the narrow window where stepping outside at eight in the evening is the best part of the day.

The kana

The vowels, again — but now with a *k* in front of each.

This is the whole system. Five vowels, and rows of consonants laid across them. か is k + a. き is k + i. く, け, こ follow the same order you already learned: a, i, u, e, o. Every row you meet from here works this way, which means the hard part was chapter one and you've done it.

Two of this chapter's words are things you'd only find in autumn.