It is now time to mourn the late, great Summer. Today is the Autumnal Equinox. This means that every day now, for the next three months, we will spend fewer and fewer minutes in the presence of Old Sol, my good friend. More and more of our day will be spent in darkness. Stupid Daylight Savings Time will kick in and WHAMO: I'll walk out of school to the dim glow of the streetlights in the parking lot. No more tomatoes fresh from the vine. No more lying on the patio furniture pressed into the cushions by the ferocious blast of midday heat. No more pleasant afterwork hours in the pool. Night swimming only works when the air is still shimmering at 105.
I've always felt this way--not just since I've come to live in the desert. There is nothing less desirable than pulling on your layers of chore clothes and stepping out into the waning minutes of daylight at 5:00 P.M. in the Rocky Mountains knowing that you will be spending the next two hours in the barn, milking. It always seemed colder right then at sunset than just an hour earlier, or even an hour later. I can't think of any science that supports a temperature plunge at sunset, but it sure seemed colder. Perhaps it was the effect of just having left a house filled with the scent of fresh baked cinnamon rolls and drying laundry and now you are crunching your way across brittle snow to the barnyard where you must be on the alert for frozen cowpies so as to not break your toe, and looking out for fresh ones so as to not slip.
Perhaps my ancient ancestors were Druids or something. I mourn the passing of the long long days of sunlight. I just trudge through the weeks until late February when again the earth's orbit puts us in the path of light. Someday I'll have to go visit Stonehenge and see if I feel some primordial sense of homecoming.
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3 comments:
Your season to mourn is my season to rejoice. I love the cooler weather of autumn. My dream is to have a place of my own in New England or Michigan or Minnesota to escape to in the summer. I do not tolerate heat well and here in Texas it won't really get cooler until October. I am happy to exchange daylight for bearable temperatures. And besides, isn't it Standard time that will kick in?
But even the Druids treated that winter change with a sense of respect and honor. It was a time for Nature to rest and replenish; a time to prepare and sleep for the splendor that is Spring.
And it is too hot to bake cinnamon rolls in the desert in the summer. That is one good thing. Only next time you make them, fill the centers with orange peel, sugar and chopped, dried cranberries. It will be a taste of summer on the coldest days.
Duh...this will bring ridicule from my children...yes, it is stupid daylight savings time LEAVING. Oh my.
You know, my real favorite place to live is by the beach in California where it doesn't matter how much sunlight there it is--it's always lovely weather. Also, I'm just not motivated to bake in the summer, and I do LOVE cinnamon rolls. Texas...hmm..sounds too sticky for me.
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