View from a Rural Village

Sweatshirt weather.  I am a person made for sweatshirts and mugs of coffee on cool evenings.  It takes me back to camping and bonfires.  Perhaps I have not told you but I was a very good storyteller and memories of autumn evenings take me back to my outdoor education days.  I was in my twenties and could run on very little sleep when I was the program director at a place called Nature's Classroom.  Every week from September to early November a new groups of junior high students would move into the valley on the Illinois River with the education staff.  Other then during heavy rain, we were out in the woods.  Dirty, wet, silly, serious, and involved.  Suddenly math and science were fun as they were cleverly disguised in building rope bridges, calculating how many trees you would need to cut to build a cabin, and identifying animal prints.  In the evening we would gather around the fireplace and I would tell stories.  Not too scary but eno...

It has been too wet to sit outside in the evening so I content myself with knitting until my hands are tired and my brain is numb.  Sure that sleep will come quickly I head to bed and..... No.  Minutes drift into hours.  My fan drones on, cooling the room but blocking the outdoor chorus and sleep is elusive.  I try listening to the radio but news and weather reports are neither soothing nor quieting.  I once had a radio that also had nature sounds but that has been gone for several years.  Tonight I try to imagine the fan is actually a distant waterfall that is full from recent rains.  I try to imagine the cool green valley.  Our brains can do amazing things when we allow it.  Not tonight, though.  Tonight my brain mocks my attempt.  I think it is appalling when I flip from a cool valley and find myself standing inside a large empty factory dominated by a huge industrial fan whirling out a tornado. Sigh.

Sitting on the concrete porch listening to the late summer evening.  Early visitors were the cardinals who were constant companions.  There were several babies this year and now their chorus is full.  Then the cicadas began followed by katydids and tree frogs.  The sounds of lawn mowers fade away as darkening takes over.  I will wait for the owls. The time of the fireflies is done and the songs of the crickets have arrived.  This is the beginning of my great longing.  As Autumn nears the primitive need to ready for winter grows strong.  If I had a fireplace I would be worrying if there were enough logs split and dry.  The bounty of the garden would need to be canned and soups would be prepared for the freezer.  I would walk through the room that serves as my library checking on my stash.  Is there enough to carry me through a long winter? Ahh, my inner child whispers.  Not yet.  Not yet.  Sit and watch for shootin...