jacket weather

yesterday morning had my first real cold weather run.  it is perfect fall here right now.  same lake I've been running around all summer and same trees there in their same places.  almost painful taking in full breaths of sharp morning air, eyes dry, hands stiff and numb, but full body awake and ready to go any direction quick, jump over anything.  and I hadn't thought about it since, but was suddenly reminded of running around the elementary school track in SE Portland last fall, and one day especially when it began to snow and every lap I took left new snow prints in the same lane, pulled tight the drawstrings on my hood and followed myself around a few times.  and on the heels of that one, similarly reminded of a river-side run I took one morning in wichita exactly two years ago, even colder then and the trees already gone leafless, pausing in the middle of a red plastic walking bridge that spanned the water, and coming across a makeshift homeless shelter underneath one fallen tree on one remote stretch of river-bank.

static exhibitions where downtown weaverville storefronts boast big bails of hay scarecrow and pumpkin arrangements, telephone pole adds for the corn maze and the autumn festival and I have been here half the year.  still waiting for the call to say I won the fall raffle at the middle school fair, from the little girl with bundle of tickets and said I had a good chance.  friends coming in from all corners of the states to swing on our back porch in front of the fire and look at our stars and bump into each other while crossing through the kitchen.  everyday is a birthday and everyday is peak season, talked to an older lady at work yesterday who told me she had been here 14 years and had seen "many beautiful falls".  sports in full swing and I'd even watch baseball maybe.

of all the seasons more of a return to the regular, a settle me down for school, for work and for the winter.  a reminder that all of life is not free breeze summer and that hard work is on the way, that what used to be new will soon freeze over and the innate drive to persist, because one way or another and whatever you planned, this is the winter that you got yourself into.  pause to judge everything around you and up till now, and concluding finally that it isn't so bad, and actually if you put it that way I see it's all pretty good.  time for the travels and time for the hostings, and the always maybe next year...