The Seasonal Collision

I call it Summall......the brief period of time when Summer and Fall intertwine. It is possibly my favorite time of year. The mornings and evenings are washed with cool whiffs of the changing foliage while the afternoons are still warm enough to liberate your toes from shoes and socks. Darkness is held at bay long enough to allow the girls to enjoy plenty of after-school outdoors time (in the winter this far north, dusk falls soon after the dismissal bell rings). I have one hand firmly grasped to summer and the other clutching at the coming autumn. It is a delicate and succulent balance that won't last long.

I don't function well on a tight schedule. I think it may have something to do with being an active participant in my mother's multi-faceted comprehensive agenda. It seemed that she had at least 2 or 3 things going on at once, all day long. She flourishes in this hectic and chaotic environment while I seem to collapse if I don't keep my life fairly simple. I don't think I'm lazy. There are a lot of things that i enjoy doing and I like to keep busy. I like to accomplish things. I just need to have a bit of room to bounce around in.  
I couldn't sleep last night and re digested portions of Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" I thought her intricate descriptions of minutia would lull me to sleep. On the contrary, I was reminded of the book's brilliance, the endorphins kicked in, and I was awake until 4:30( I had to pick up Newsweek to completely kill the adrenaline rush).

Again, I have to resort to quotes...I am not capable of doing justice. " I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. If you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple." (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

I have been finding a lot of pennies lately.