End of Summer Stream of Consciousness

Last week a series of rainstorms ushered in Autumn. After a hot, dry summer during which the clouds tended to just sail on by, staying aloof and seldom deigning to send down any moisture, I had almost forgotten it could rain so many days in a row. But rain it did, and Pearl would toddle to the window when it started and make the sign for rain, excitement on her face. Evening on the last day it rained was beautiful: the tail end of the front moving darkly east ahead of a double rainbow; the sky to the west endlessly blue.

Now the sky seems a little farther away, and though the sun is still hot the air itself is cool. It almost looks like springtime because the lawns and foliage are all lush and verdant from the rain, except for a tree here and there whose leaves have turned yellow and begun to drop.

The college students are back in town; hordes of them swelling the streets and filling the stores. Lots of them are my age and slightly older, more still are younger. They are so reckless it scares me - don't they know their SUVs do not make them omnipotent, that just because they don't look before stepping out into the street doesn't mean no one is there?

In some ways I like living in a college town and in some ways I don't. I think it keeps the atmosphere younger and more progressive, but it's also kind of strange to see new students coming in each year and moving on semester by semester and as I live my life not doing that it seems that I'm standing still.

For me, Spring is ecstacy and excitement, and Autumn is a bittersweet sense of forboding; perhaps some deep-buried instinct to migrate for the winter is kicking in. Right now I just feel happy that summer is drawing to an end, and I'm looking forward to brilliant colors, crisp days spent outside throwing leaves into the air with Pearl, and harvest-time meals that take hours to cook, making the kitchen warm and filling the house with the scent of plenty.