The Clock Strikes Mid-October

Little brown birds and leaves dart through this fall air. The yellow leaves on the sidewalk please me with their randomness. A slug moves in circles over the chilling bricks. When I pick the spent blooms from the petunia, the stickiness coats my fingertips but seems to dissipate before I get up the front steps to our door.

I used to not like fall, never gave a thought to the possibility of liking fall until one day in Kansas. C- walked beside me, visiting from out of state, at some intermediate stage of our confused relationship, and said fall was his favorite season. Was dumbfounded that I disagreed so avidly.

Since then, fall is C-'s season in my mind. The more I like it, the older I feel. Old enough to be looking backward; old enough to want shorter days for a while.

*
Finished "The Other Side of the Bridge" by Mary Lawson. A very autumnal book. Lots of nice bridge metaphors can be made; complaints about a gratuitous death at the end can be lodged--yet I liked it all. I'm a sucker for a good clean sentence. I'd quote one, but I've already loaned the book out.