TheBanyanTree: Autumnal Equinox (Almost)

[Margaret R. Kramer]

We were slapped hard by a cold front this week.  The temperature dropped 20
degrees in less than an hour.

In the early morning, I left the gym wearing sandals and cotton pants and a
pretty yellow T-shirt and the temperature was 72.  It was sticky and humid
and as the sky was brightening with the coming dawn, I could see dark wild
clouds dancing above me as I drove to work.

Later, when I used my lunch hour to go to the mall and buy some suitable gym
shoes and a new cell phone with a colored screen, but no camera, and snuck
through Barnes and Noble to grab a couple of paperbacks, the wind was
blowing hard from the north, the wild clouds were now spitting raindrops,
and I really needed a thick wool sweater to keep warm.  But I was still
dressed like it was summer.  I didn’t want to let go of it yet.

As the east coast was getting blasted by Hurricane Isabel, we were getting
blasted by a fast moving thunderstorm.  The spits became a wide open water
faucet and ping pong ball sized hail pummeled our defenseless cars in the
parking lot.

Our 2003 summer was swept into the dust bin by that cold front.  The dark
clouds moved on quickly and left us with crystal clear skies and the sting
of North Pole air on our faces.

As the cold rain poured down, Ray and I turned on our gas fireplace for the
first time since June (we had a cool and rainy June in Minnesota this
season).  While the flames licked the ceramic wood and gradually warmed up
our little loft, we sank deep into our green couch and watched the Twins on
TV beat their rivals the Chicago White Sox in the warm and dry Metrodome.
Who says baseball has to be played outdoors?

The next afternoon, when I got home from work, our house was a chilly 67
degrees inside, and I turned on the furnace for the first time this season.
I heard the furnace fan kick in and the heat beast roared to life.  Then I
smelled it, that funny, musty smell coming from the  unused vents.  Fall is
here.

I wore a black sweatshirt to bed.  I wrapped the blankets around me.  My old
cat slept close to my feet during the night.  I had warm dreams of orange
and red and gold.

The summer colors of green and yellow and pink seem out of place now.  I can
’t imagine wearing a bathing suit, and I just did a couple of weeks ago as
we baked under the hot sun and wished for a cold rain to wash away the dust
left over from July and August.

The grass is now green again and growing.  Our leaves haven’t begun to turn
yet, except for a few wayward trees.  The flowers are still blooming.  The
first frost and the first killing freeze have yet to arrive.  But the ice
crystals are coming.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.skywaybpw.org
Skyway Business and Professional Women
Working women connecting.

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

~William Shakespeare