Actually, it isn’t. Not yet, anyway. After a relatively balmy September and early October, the temperatures have plummeted from daytime low 70’s F to low 60’s, and night times approach, but don’t attain, freezing. The days are “drawing in”. Long, 18 hour summer days have gradually decreased to 10, and by Christmas it will be dark at 4:00 PM, when-night time frosts, maybe snow, will be a regular occurence. It seems right, these extreme changes in light. Spring and summer are all frantic growth and flowering and wildly beautiful countryside and birthing of lambs and calves. In autumn, as the light decreases and leaves slowly drop, it feels to me like a kind of relief from all that activity. Maybe it is my time of life, too, not yet winter but well into fall, into the breathing space of not-trying.
This piece moves so nicely from the well-worn title into that surprising final phrase.
more great Kay Hall stuff. I can only add that, as one old pal keeps reminding me, “you know, Nalle, we’re in the fourth quarter.”
Sandy Nalle
A nice read of experiences recognized by most of us that have lived. Your hint of a conclusion, although somewhat sad, is I think a reflection of my own.
Curt, thanks for your comment.