Summer to Autumn

There is a quality of the light as the summer winds down. When you either go to school or work on the school's schedule you begin to notice the sun's comings and goings. This morning was an autumn morning. It was already 80 degrees outside with the humidity sticking to the air in great globules. But in the air conditioned sanctuary of home, the light coming over the trees told me autumn is on the way. Summer seems to gush out between peeking fingers of houses, trees, clouds. But autumn sort of slides across the horizon and slowly comes up out of the ground, like waking up. Summer is boisterous, noisy, clambering and exuberant. Autumn is contemplative and almost shy. With the job change this year I will go back into the rhythm of an elementary school. The cadence of the days, the children growing before your very eyes like pumpkin vines. They will probably make me yearn for the days when my own children were in school, with the drama and excitement and the new experiences along the way. But Autumn is a time of yearning as well. A time to stop and watch the roses grown brown on the vine instead of smelling them. A time of watching and waiting for winter. I have written about Autumn before, its coming and going. But this year when the light is slower and different, I wonder, what will things be like? What will the year bring? I never really appreciate or even like summer much, it's too, well, too much. But autumn and I get along just fine. Perhaps it's because my birthday is in autumn? I think though that the rhythm of the season is what appeals to me. We slow down and look at things differently in autumn. We understand each other.