Seasonal Adjustments
OK, the kids are back in school and life should return to normal now. Something about August just makes my brain melt and die, and then, like a phoenix, it rises from its own ashes roundabout Labor Day.
While waiting for my mind to stop wasting, I read The Baroque Cycle. Since everyone else read it a year ago, a well thought out review would probably be another way to waste my mind. Now I want to read Cryptonomicon, which my husband swears is somewhere in the house, but neither one of us can find it. More evidence my brain is still not in autumn form.
I'm sure all of us have idiosyncratic sensory cues, left over from our childhoods, that trigger emotions tied to the passage of time. For me, one of the most poignant sights in the world is a field of soybeans turned to orange. This was the cue that school was back in session, which made me happy and sad at the same time. By the time August rolled around, my sister and I had pretty much exhausted our capacity for self-amusement. Our farm was isolated, and we had little company other than ourselves. So it would be exciting to go with Grammy to the clothing store and get new dresses and shoes....
Good grief. I sound like some antiquated dowager reminiscing about riding on a horse drawn turnip cart. It is true, though, that we were required, in a public school, to wear dresses and leather shoes, and that the only place to buy such trappings for young girls was a store on the courthouse square of the county seat. There was no shopping mall within 50 miles of our house until I was in high school. That is also when we began to be allowed to wear slacks (but not blue jeans! That came even later) to school.
....but it was also sad that another year had slipped away. Something about the coincidence of the start of school and the dying away of everything that had grown during the summer made it even sadder. I suppose that's true of everything outside the Kingdom of Heaven....there is always melancholy and regret mixed with even the most welcomed and anticipated events.
While waiting for my mind to stop wasting, I read The Baroque Cycle. Since everyone else read it a year ago, a well thought out review would probably be another way to waste my mind. Now I want to read Cryptonomicon, which my husband swears is somewhere in the house, but neither one of us can find it. More evidence my brain is still not in autumn form.
I'm sure all of us have idiosyncratic sensory cues, left over from our childhoods, that trigger emotions tied to the passage of time. For me, one of the most poignant sights in the world is a field of soybeans turned to orange. This was the cue that school was back in session, which made me happy and sad at the same time. By the time August rolled around, my sister and I had pretty much exhausted our capacity for self-amusement. Our farm was isolated, and we had little company other than ourselves. So it would be exciting to go with Grammy to the clothing store and get new dresses and shoes....
....but it was also sad that another year had slipped away. Something about the coincidence of the start of school and the dying away of everything that had grown during the summer made it even sadder. I suppose that's true of everything outside the Kingdom of Heaven....there is always melancholy and regret mixed with even the most welcomed and anticipated events.