It’s on the Air
This weekend, there was a kiss of red and gold on the tops of the trees as we drove around the state. And tonight we have our first frost warning. This is the difficult thing about fall, when it seems like it’s so far off, and then suddenly it just jumps in front of us for a little scare. I’m trying to burn a reminder into my brain that I need to collect our extra sheets from the garage and gather all of the plants underneath them tonight if I want a few more weeks with our flowers. They’ve all been doing so well, and it seems a shame to leave them to the cold just yet. Plus, I have some work to do with our growing geranium collection before fall progresses too much further.
It feels like I’ve barely spent any time outside, between the relentless smoke and air quality issues and the general heat and drought making being the outdoors more punishing than enjoyable. I also know we’re barely through September, and these past few years we’ve had some furnace level heat waves late into the month. Of course, several people at the knitting group I attended last week warned us the rodent invasions were beginning, and the persistence of mice trying to winter inside is an indicator we’re in for a rough cold season.
No one could say for certain what “rough” meant. Will we be buried in snow? Will we have months long cold snaps necessitating 2am visits to our garage to run the engine in our car (We don’t have a block heater)? Will it just be relentlessly brutal? All I know for certain is: it will be winter, and we’ll have some snow, we’ll be cold; the quantities and duration of these things are never completely accurate in their predictability.
I’m also not ready for the seasons to change, because it’s such a tangible reminder time has followed through on its demand to march forward. The holidays are going to be rocky this year, the way they were rocky last year, and the way they’ve been rocky after any major loss. I’m not sure I’m ready for that side of things. I feel insanely prepared for all sorts of other things, like making a half dozen pies (because for some reason we possess that many pie dishes), but being prepared to do that isn’t going to make up for the absence of my grandmother in the way I actually want it to.
So, I’m going to just put blinders on and stumble into whatever comes next and probably forget mid-way through why everything is so difficult and then be reminded out of nowhere and fall apart. Which isn’t actually anything new, in the grand scheme of things. But, it never happens the same way twice, so I’m sure there are surprises waiting for me around a corner in the future.
