Playing for Time

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Every day the clock resets, offering a fresh chance to get it right. We sleep the “little death” and wake to sunlight that says it’s time to live again, everything new, all for the taking. Each day brings something good/interesting/enlightening if we’re awake for it and can work through yesterday’s detritus in short order.

Speaking of change, sometime in the past hour our renters seem to have flown the coop. Both offspring were in the nest when I got up, stretching their wings and testing them in the wind under the ferns. Went out a bit ago and nobody home. So the Dove family, David and Darleen and their two sets of twins, are likely off somewhere in the East Lawrence forest, doing whatever birds do with their summers. We barely got to know this latest set of chicks, Durwood and Donna, before they ditched the down and ducked out. Derek and Diane, the first set, provided our learning curve, and the whole family sweetened springtime for us so we hope they’ll check us out again next year.

Now summer is here and July arrives tomorrow. I scheduled my next five-week haircut the other day and it puts me into August, a fact which made me catch my breath. Life is a headlong rush from cradle to grave… unless it drags endlessly, each day and its dark night seeming both terminal and a life-sentence… pick your poison, although we rarely get to choose.

So yeah, summertime in Kansas. Totally unpredictable. Tie everything down for which you have a big enough bungie cord and enjoy.

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A postscript: I went out just now and there were Durwood and Donna, snug in the nest, smug about knowing how to fly, and contemplating their next foray. So that cozy little bower is still home, or at least a way station, for a bit yet and we aren’t sad about that.