That Time of Year....

Yesterday was a gorgeous fall day, with temperatures up into the 60s. It was a day that there was no excuse to stay inside, so we actually got out in the morning (before I had to be at church for a pre-baptism meeting and some other office work) and raked leaves and started cleaning and organizing our back porch.

Scout wanted to be outside too. She always adds an element of fun to "outside". We took a couple of work breaks to take pictures of her.

When we got tired and needed to go inside for lunch and to do other things, Scout didn't want to come in. In fact, she didn't want to come in all afternoon.

She didn't come inside until it was time for her supper.

She wasn't running around, or chasing animals, or digging holes, or barking madly. When we peeked outside to check on her, more often than not, we would find her just sitting in the middle of the yard, just experiencing (it seemed to me) the rareness of the day, the rareness of the time of year -- the fleeting season between summer and winter, when the leaves are down but the snow has not yet come, when the sun is not too hot, the wind is not too fierce, the sun is soothing, the wind massages.

I think I knew a little of what she felt.

My days become so full, my lists so long, my worries so all-consuming, that it seems that I don't have time so often to just sit: to sit and read, to sit and knit -- even just to sit and look around and wonder. My days become so full that I don't notice... the yellow leaves, the breeze, the quiet ticking...

That time of year thou mayest in me behold

When yellow leaves, or few, or none do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

--William Shakespeare