So soon?

"Autumn begins with a subtle change in the light, with skies a deeper blue, and nights that become suddenly clear and chilled."

~ Glenn Wolff and Jerry Dennis

Every morning when I get up, usually just as the sun is about to come peeking over the ridge across the valley from us, I step out on the deck to breathe in early morning air, listen to the horses playing down in the trees below us, and begin the real waking process. This morning there was the unmistakable feel of fall in the air and I found myself thinking, 'So soon?'

It's impossible to describe what that feeling is...a shift in the morning light as the earth progresses in its slow dance through the seasons, the sharp scent of wet pine forest as the first morning rays warm trees, a crisp feel on your skin from air that has gone surprisingly cool. It has all gone by too fast as I have spent a second summer recovering from health issues.

I've seen the signs for a week or more as Griton began to shed his summer coat. He is the last to lose the remnants of his heavy coat in the spring and the first to begin preparing for the winter to come. Many people think it is temperature that triggers shedding but in fact, it's the amount of daylight that enters an animal's eyes. With a high peak above us to the west, our days are shorter than those of our neighbors below us in the valley and our mountain horses spend more of the year in their winter wear than the valley horses less than a mile away from us.

This has been a summer of introspection and counseling as I have waited for my body to recover from surgery. Physically I'm feeling very much back to normal during the day, but I am still fading rapidly in the evening and I find myself falling asleep on the couch after everyone has been fed and I've eaten my dinner. It's just a shock to realize that yet another of the summers that seemed to last forever when I was a child, is almost gone.

As hard as this summer has been, I think something good is coming from it. I am ready for change in myself but are the people around me? When we begin to find true balance, it has a way of rippling out to everyone in our lives...sometimes they are ready for it too, sometimes not. So like the seasons, I seem to be moving into a time of change and I hope it works out well for all of us.

Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not and never again will be; what is, is change.
~ Edwin Way Teale