The temperatures are dropping into "normal" Autumnal variations, which here actually means pretty pleasant weather - before the cold starts migrating in and stays.
Autumn this year feels compressed to me. It is practically already the middle of October - that is a mere 2.5 months left in the year. Halloween in three weeks, Thanksgiving in 1.5 months, and Christmas in 2.5 months In this time I have three 1 week trips to The Ranch, two short planned personal trips, Thanksgiving, and Christmas/Christmas Break. And what is left of the work year to "complete" everything that is to be done.
If I get my Fall garden planted this year between now and the time it gets too cold, I will feel like I have made actually progress.
This year feels incomplete to me - or rather perhaps, I feel incomplete.
I am more and more taken by the fact that I feel strung out between places and lives. I am here in New Home. I am in Old Home. We (The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I) are working to manage our own lives and plans here, while my sister and I are working to manage my parents situation and estate at The Ranch in Old Home. In both locations, I am working through a job which a some level seems always in flux, as much due to the nature of the business as it seems to be due to the fact things I am working on seem to keep going back "to development".
I am everywhere - and strangely, I am nowhere.
In a way, perhaps, this is the essence of Autumn: The point at which Nature just gives up and decides to pack it all in. The season is done for the year, the growing and flying about and activity is done. Leaves fall, rains come, season turns cold, and everything gets an enforced rest and readjustment.
Perhaps that is what I need right now, this shedding of leaves to remove externalities and the flush of cold chill the sap and snap me into where I actually am - or perhaps, where I should actually be.
Fall takes a very long time to arrive in south Texas. Winter is shkort, approximately the 2nd week of November to about the end of February. Rarely ever even freezes overnight, let alone all day.
ReplyDeleteThe 1st cool front is welcome indeed. You people living up there right not can appreciate that - lucky you !
Wow, that is a short Winter! I can imagine the Cold Front is more than welcome.
DeleteI agree with Anon. We had some really nice cold fronts during July this year. I was only mostly dead, so I did enjoy them. We had one approach this week, then turn around as a warm front just north of us. If you can imagine living in the hairy armpit of an unwashed giant, that's about how warm and humid it is around here now. Fall comes on a Tuesday and lasts no more than 2 days...
ReplyDeleteYour comments are right on track with my thinking. This year is / has / appears to be a MAJOR intersection. I don't know what road I'm taking, and I don't know which way is the WAY forward.
Too many options / obligations.
But I realized yesterday, that Boy Scouts impacted me way more than I knew. I made it all the way to Second Class. You always leave the campsite or path cleaner than when you arrived. It's not even a option. It's just the way it is. I realized that I clean up messes that I find, even if I'm not responsible for it. Mostly at work: network closets that are dumps, bad wiring management, poor network jacks, etc. Since July though.....
The last decade of my life, I was pretty messy around the house. I know WHY I am now. Head wiring is non-standard. So now, I'm cleaning up the house mess so I'll be ready for whatever road is the WAY. 5 minutes at a time, then resting for however long it takes... s.......l.......o.............w progress.
Lots of sturm and drang in the soul to figure this out but I'm still boy scouting my way through life. Odd to figure that out so late.
STxAR, it all about progress, not matter how slow. And I, too, am coming to realize I have a great deal which is just sort of "out there" and needs be resolved.
DeleteBest synopsis of autumn that I've read in a while!
ReplyDeleteYep 👍 It sure is.
DeleteThank you both.
DeleteThe modern world of climate control, energy, and 24 hours/365 day activities mean we are always at a feverish pace. It was not so, once.
After dealing with my mother's estate, finishing my house, selling my house, and finally moving to where I'll probably spend the rest of my life, the compression of time left me feeling incomplete. The addition of retirement leaves my thoughts full of tasks, which really don't have to be done.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in all of this, the progression of seasons appeared, and the subtle difference of these changes more apparent. Where I was worried about the fig tree losing its leaves, I suddenly realized it was preparing for the coming cold, regardless of my perception.
Jess - That sounds exhausting, and I am only doing a smidgeon of that. But your phrase "compression of time" rings true with me. It really does feel like time is being compressed, and I with it.
DeleteTraveling back to The Ranch once a month as I do now, I am able - in small bits - to be more conscious of the seasons changing. The leaves fell what seemed early to me this year, but the trees have doing this far longer than I have been estimating the start of Autumn. As you suggest, perhaps better to let them guide us.
Thank you for stopping by!
I can't help but believe the seasons were designed (created) as a metaphor for our lives, as you have described. Just as the writer of Ecclesiastes described how everything has an appropriate season, there are times we need to shed the old (fall), settle in for some down time (winter) and observe how all things become new (spring). I'm not sure as to the purpose of summer, other than to remind me how much I detest being hot, but I'm sure there is one!
ReplyDeleteIt is not a bad idea Bob.
DeleteTechnically, things flourish during the Summer, but that does not explain the hot.