Yesterday had that look. It was the first hint that I had seen all summer. Well past the Summer Solstice, the sun’s golden rays had taken on the slant that says fall is coming. It’s definitely not here yet, although the past few days have been a welcome relief from the weeks of broiling temperatures we’re accustomed to. But the light had a new angle to it as if to say; wait for it. Wait for the renewal, the end of old, stale things, and the fulfillment of nearly forgotten dreams.

I’m not good at this waiting. It’s like standing around in mud. The clammy abrasiveness cakes upon your skin, clogging your pores. It sets, a dusky concrete stretching on for miles and engulfing your life. It takes more than a pretty golden light to fix that. But the light is a harbinger. It’s a sign of the coming season that reshapes life with its cold vice grip.

That’s what I thought about this morning as I sippped the pre-fall season’s first French Press (a nice, locally roasted Sumatra): how the seasons shift and change and every time it happens, it feels so new. But it’s a cycle. Life shifts and changes too; it’s a cycle as well. Mom used to say, “Life’s a constant repeat”. It was always a desolate thought, but has never been truer.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but autumn does a nice job sucking up the past. The cooler air points me in a new direction and whispers, Hey buddy, life’s that way! Out there! Once beckoned, it’s hard to turn back. Like a shark I keep moving, as if that is the only answer. And as fall slides into winter, summer’s memories freeze and shatter like crystal beneath my trodding feet. Once I’ve found the temerity to stop and look back I think about the last line in The Day After Tomorrow:

“Have you ever seen the air so clear?”.