Looking forward, living in the moment

It seems like a lot of my posts have to do with making peace with dichotomous needs or views. Today's "Want my cake and eat it too" is that I'm already looking forward to autumn while not being in a terrible hurry to get there.

Summer here in the mountains is incredibly short, and once it's gone it's gone for so long, so I don't want to rush it. I've been so busy this summer that I haven't had near enough time to enjoy my gardens. Most of the veggies aren't even ripe enough to pick yet. I'd like more time to lay in the hammock. I enjoy the green. I enjoy the breeze through the window screens 24 hours a day. I like knowing that if I want to go somewhere, there won't be any snowy passes or bad weather (probably, one never knows around here - once we had snow on the 4th of July!) to bar my way or make travel difficult. I like the freedom of no school schedule. No t.v. schedule. (almost everything is in rerun so I don't have to worry about missing my favorite series) No woodstove to keep stoked. As the song goes "Summertime, and the living is easy."

The flip side, and there's always a flip side, is that autumn is my bestest, favoritest, most wonderfullest time of year. I have more energy in the fall. I love the autumn leaves, the smell of drying grasses, pumpkins and squash piling up, in good garden years all the produce to freeze, can, dry or store. (and I love to rant about all the work it is to put up as much as I love actually putting it up) I love wearing socks and tie-on shoes for the first time in months. I like feeling the cold on my nose and ears while the rest of me is snug inside a jacket. I love the honking of the geese headed south. I ADORE decorating with corn stalks and indian corn wreaths, jack-o-lanterns and skeletons. The smell of woodstoves in the nighttime air. I can't think of a single thing I DON'T love about autumn.

Except for, in this neck of the woods, autumn means winter and winter is so very long in the mountains. The first part of winter is okay. The busyness of the winter holidays, the newness of the first snow. The quiet that descends when the light gives way to the lenghthening nights and one draws inward to rest, both physically and spiritually, the down time between the busy seasons of life. It's the tail end of winter that's tough, the gray, barren part that drags on here long past the time the lower elevations are welcoming daffodils and green buds on the trees.

But back to today, where it isn't winter yet, or even autumn, although autumn is starting to steal in around the edges, in the smell of the grass and the chill in the night. I'm not so much in a hurry for autumn to come as I am relieved to be past the relentless heat waves that took over most of our summer months. Summer as it's presenting itself now, without that razor sharp edge, is a pleasant place to dawdle and I am happy to live in it's butterfly and iced tea filled moments.

Of course there's nothing wrong with sitting in my still green garden, butterflies flitting, ice tea condensing on my glass, while browsing through the latest Halloween craft catalog. Is there?