Last night I slept with the windows open again. I love the autumn; it is my favorite season of the year. One of the few benefits of the summer blazing by as fast as it did was that it hurried me toward my favorite time of year. Among the first sign of the changing of seasons is those first cool nights that herald the waning of summer heat and the onset of autumn cool. I love it when I can finally open the windows in the evening and let the fresh night air replace the stale conditioned air that has prevailed during July and August heat. Opening the windows brings indoors the myriad sounds of the night creatures whirring, croaking, and chirping with amazing volume. The night has its own rhythm in the cacophonous racket set up by thousands of unseen critters. I am grateful for the coolness, grateful for the racket, grateful for the approach of the harvest season, and a time for winding down.
There is a time for every purpose under heaven, the philosopher wrote, a time to sow and a time to reap. We do our sowing in the spring, our cultivating, watering and tending in the summer, and our harvesting in the fall. It has been so for thousands of years, and so it is today.
It’s dark when I get up these days. I get up around 5:15 each morning, so the dark is not all that unusual. But these days it’s still dark when I pad back into the kitchen for my second cup of coffee, always around 6 a.m. In the middle of summer, it’s well on toward bright morning by 6:00, but as the days grow shorter, it will eventually grow dark in the morning as well as in the early evening. That I do mind a bit, as I really dislike doing my 27-mile commute home in darkness. It always makes me more tired when I have to do that, but as with most everything else, I get acclimated to it.
With many forecasts pointing to a cold, harsh winter this year, I am reminded once again how fortunate I am to have a warm, dry and safe home that shelters my body from the elements and provides a sense of home for me. As much as I love fall and winter (my second favorite season), dealing with the onset of inclement weather always brings to my mind the many people for whom warm and safe shelter is not a reality.
Tonight really is about simple things. A comfortable place to lay my head at the end of a long and semi-stressful work day. Gratitude for the abundance that is present in my life, even when I don’t acknowledge or feel it. The blessings and beauty I see in the nature around me. These are simple things and yet they have a profound impact on how I life my life and experience the world around me.
