Can See the End

The Germans have a word for it (actually, they have a word for everything and then some, and at this stage in my life, I've heard most of them or what feels like most of them, but I digress). There's a hurry-up in your step now as you try to chase and catch up to you're not quite sure what (but it's covered in fallen leaves). You're afraid of missing it even if you're struggling to define what it is. Torschlusspanik. 

You just awoke with a start from what you thought was a short reverie and learned that those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are just about gone. When did that happen? A moment ago, it was the second week of June, you were making plans for the picnic and softball on the 4th; the kids, if you had any, were looking forward to complaining, 'there's nothing to do,' after the school year, despite the acres of daylight and sunshine surrounding them. 

And now? Those kids may already be back in school or heading there in the coming days. As for holidays, brace for Labor Day, which puts a bow around the summer. That we all take off (except the mattress stores, who see it as a sales opportunity), instead of honoring the hundreds of millions (literally) whose work and sacrifice built this country, is always ironic, bordering on the obscene at least to me.

I had an appointment for yet more blood tests early (for me) Friday morning. The sky was so blue and cloudless that you get lost looking into it, and the sun was bright and warm on my face. But for the first time since I'm thinking late May, I had to wear a light jacket because of the 'crisp' temperatures. It's about the only time I ever use the word 'crisp.' Unless I encounter someone with a lisp, then I use it a lot because I'm not a nice person.

I had to root around in our hall closet to find it, but now I've moved the hanger into the high rotation area because for the next six weeks or so (fingers crossed) I'll be wearing it more and more, eventually swapping it out for heavier coats until I get to the winterwear. 

Lots of folks rhapsodize about the (approaching) autumn. Not me. I think about how many autumns I've lived through and how very few I still have. As the moroons with their gas-powered leaf blowers resume their annual battle with the inevitability of seasonal changes, I take a moment to think about the adventures I've had and the ones I could have had but for a simple twist of fate and a change of circumstance, and wait for the ever more rapidly approaching dark of evening.
-bill kenny