Changing of the Season

It is a beautiful day in southeastern Michigan. I'm sitting in a coffee shop listening to Norah Jones work through "Humble Me"--a favorite of mine, and thinking about the changing of the season. It is the last weekend of summer, my appetite has already indicated that in its desire for squash, pumpkin, wheat bread and apples. My mind is with the appetite in that I'm thinking of baking, freezing and switching from my summertime affair with Shakira, Joan Jett, the Artic Monkeys and Pussycat Dolls and migrating to autumnal favorites Jimmy Buffett, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Krall and Harry Connick Jr. Sweaters are out, boots and non-open toe shoes have already been worn... the fashion is gradually shifting with the smell of the leaves preparing to change and the morning dew sticking heavier on the grass than before. Colors are moving from aquamarine to orange again.

I usually feel a little down; I want to embrace the change, but I don't want to lose the warmth of the summer to the coolness of the autumn. People change with the season, and as I wonder where I am going and what I'm going to find ahead, I know something has already clicked in me. I avoided the news out of NY fashion week this time around. Normally, I seek it out and delight in the latest to come out of the new line ups--even if I loathe it. But I've been pre-occupied; writers block, if you will allow the metaphor. It's writers block in the literal sense and in the figurative sense... I have writer's block in all the areas of my life. I find it interesting, even ironic, that the last major writing I was able to make was at the changing of the guard from Spring to Summer... and the Summer found me flailing with no direction. Perhaps, I'm down; but I'm more wlecoming of the confort of the change as we pass from this summer--of which I need to be rid--in order to move forward.

The future is a well-worn notebook, yet blank with possibilities of what can be prescribed. Maybe the changing of the season is a time to mourn the losses and move on toward the possiblities. Maybe the eternal optimist in me refuses to see anything different.

Just. Maybe.