Mornings are darker. Evenings are shorter. September moves to October and a new season begins. It doesn’t feel like fall.
Actually at deadline on Monday, a day early due to the possibility that Hurricane Sally could knock out power to our print plant in McComb, it kind of felt stormy. In fact, at this writing on Monday, there were seven active tropical systems in the Atlantic and Gulf. Five of them were even strong enough to have the names Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy and Vicky.
I don’t ever recall that much action at one time, and it looks very likely that we’re going to shoot though the entire alphabet before this hurricane season draws to a close. Just chalk another one up for the year 2020. It certainly makes one wonder what else might go down in the record books during the last quarter of this year.
It does no good to worry about that, though, so let’s enjoy some of the better things in life that sometimes seem are to be hiding from us during this very strange year.
Like falling leaves.
Over the Labor Day weekend wife, Danny, and I were lounging in our loungers on the patio enjoying a not-so-humid day, if there is such a thing as not-so-humid day in Mississippi. Lying on our backs and gazing into the branches of the oak tree above us we could see some of the leaves had begun to change colors and some of them, whether from heat or the season, would release their grasp on the branch and slowly twirl to the ground.
It is a big old tree and with the blue sky and wispy clouds as a back drop it made for an almost hypnotic, peaceful sight.
There was one leaf in particular that began its dance from the very tip top of the tree and slowly — gracefully — made its way to the ground.
Simple things, right? Right!
A week later, this past Sunday afternoon, it seemed hotter and more humid out than the weekend before as I was mowing on the lawn. Note: we don’t “mow” our lawn, we “mow on” it all week long it seems. But when I was done with what I wanted to do, not what I needed to do, but what I wanted to do, I joined Danny on the front porch and it was no longer hot at all.
The wind chimes played their different songs as the late summer breeze cooled us in our rockers. There are two sets of very large bamboo cane chimes I made from the now native plant that tries to take over our yard. They serve as the bass of the music, and then there is a large copper set of chimes hanging from the big cedar tree base left barren in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. I think those are probably tenor. The plain old pipe chimes I gave my grandmother years and years ago when she lived in our house, I’ll say are alto and the dainty little bells with their high pitch must be soprano. Put them all together with a tropical breeze, close the eyes and let the mind relax, and it makes for a beautiful melody.
The music played, the elephant ears danced, and the hydrangea swayed to and fro as humming birds hovered overhead.
For a brief while there was no pandemic, no election update, no hurricane briefings, no masks, no shootings, no these lives or those lives matter, no television, no internet, no email. No work, no stress, no sickness, no pain, no suffering, no tears to be cried. No bills to be paid, no apologies to be made, no disagreements to be had, no important decisions that couldn’t wait. For a brief period of time there was peace and harmony.
As summer fades to autumn — in less than a week in fact — that feeling too will fade come tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. That, my friends, is why we must savor those simple things blowing in the breeze as long as the breeze shall blow.
