Monday, October 24, 2005

winds of change

It was about 67 degrees when I took my purple bike ride on Saturday night. During the night, it got rather cold and Sunday morning the air was brisk, but by the time we left church around noon, it was pretty warm again. I heard someone complaining and saying that they couldn't remember the last time it had stayed so warm for so long. It has been downright hot 'round here.
This morning I had a lot of work to do for Chapel prep for Wednesday, so I stayed home, made a pot of Sperl, put on a sweatshirt and repaired to the deck to get down to business. I was still out there working when Allison got up at 2:00pm and walked out to say hi. She thought it was getting a bit chilly. I walked through the house to see her off, and never went back outside. I stopped off in the kitchen, open my computer and got back to work at the table.
Out the window, I watched the trees become more active and the branches bend and the leaves wave. The clouds came and went and came and went. After about an hour, the kids began to arrive home, and when Molly came to kiss me, I thought she'd freeze my cheek. I went back outside to find the temperature had dropped sharply. Suddenly, it was late October, something that I'd never have been convinced of an hour earlier.
For the first time all year, the windows have been shut to block out the cold rather than the heat. We've been sleeping with the windows open for a couple months now. Not tonight.
An hour of wind and the season changes. Now it is World Series weather. I'm praying the Sox don't go cold.
So I started thinking about a comment I read this summer that said, back in the day, people thought that the wind caused the trees to wave their branches. But now everyone knows its the trees waving that causes the wind. We've become so much wiser. I wondered if the winds had brought in the change of temp, or if the change of temp had stirred up the winds. I wondered if I should sit there on the deck and wait for the wind to move me, or if I should get up and stir the air a bit and feel the winds begin.
Then I realized, if I stop waiting and get up with the intent to stir the wind, it is because the wind has stirred me.

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