Playing for Time

Every season has a reason, but I love fall. The cooler temps after we’ve steamed for weeks, the rain every few days, the leaves trying on their new fall attire, it’s all welcome every year even when it’s hard to say goodbye to summer.

Autumn and cooler weather make me want to sweep out the cave so that when the snow swirls around our door it’s just me and Boo in here by the fire, no nagging guilt about things I’ll wish I’d stuck with while I had the chance. I love winter naps and hot drinks and books and writing, with no ugly work ethic staring me in the face. So…

My “drag it out and get rid of it” purge this year is smooth workin’ fine – I don’t even take time to decide if a thing gives me joy, it doesn’t, so into the black bag it goes. And when you own it, they let you do that.

My barely hidden OCD tendencies play hell with my peace when there are bits and pieces tucked away in places where they don’t belong – Out of Sight, Out of Mind doesn’t work for me the way it does for Kim. I sometimes follow him around at a “not-annoying” distance rescuing items that his OCD is causing him to hide in places only he would think to look, and really not even him – he’s clueless when it comes to finding them again. But since he’s otherwise perfect as far as you know, he’s gotten by with it so far. I still love him madly and they tell me everyone has flaws.

So here we are in the exquisite heartbreak of fall that comes to our family just a bit more gently each year now. It’s raining, but the mid-afternoon sun is still managing to put a glow on the leaves outside my windows, and it makes me feel some kinda way. Happy, mellow, settled, at peace.

I hope the autumn of the year is being very beautiful and peaceful for you – it seems only right that it should be that way for everyone. But…

Life goes on, this we know.