09.04.14  The roaring waves and sloshing and gurgling lake kept both of us awake in the night. I kept thinking it sounded like an agitating washing machine, turned to the low-speed cycle.  A new weather system has moved in,  bringing the first frost warnings of the season.  I had just toured a friend’s garden, commenting on how lovely and full it still was, with giant squash, plump tomatoes, romaine lettuce.  Only the raspberry bushes looked finished.

Wendell Barry starts one of his poems with, “The summer ends, and it is time to face another way.”  It’s time for me to rearrange my living room furniture to face the stone fireplace and take down the sailboats on the mantel.  The hammock is drying out from the rains so it can be stored in the boat house, and before long, we will remove the golden Fir screen doors from the wall of French doors, to let more light into the house.  As I look out my kitchen window this morning, the green and white checked tablecloth covers one of the wrought iron tables and a dead, drooping flower arrangement in a mason jar, is partially covered by the tablecloth blown in the wind.  Just yesterday, i started ironing the stack of clean bed sheets which have accumulated in the laundry basket from the weeks of summer guests, and was looking forward to sunny and breezy days to hang the remaining ones in the wash on the clothesline.

Like the lake, I am somewhat agitated by this new weather, happening so fast.  It takes time to face another way.  There will be some beautiful Fall days on the other side of this weather front–I need them.