Early Signs

It was a curiously restless night, what with the wind pushing through the upper levels of the house, keeping me awake with the sensation that it’s time to move. The sun rose into an unsettled morning, glowing once through the oncoming clouds as if to prove it really was there before vanishing behind a gust of wind. I was already on the porch with my tea, having opened the house to let the encroaching cold flow through every room, pulling fall in its wake.

Today will be odd, what with the temperature falling during the day instead of rising. All my office windows are open, and it’s as if I’m working outside, stones holding papers atop my desk as winter makes its first attempt at pushing summer on.

It’s not surprising that I’m feeling as restless as the wind, that I’ve wedged myself out from behind my desk after a summer of sedentary gardening to take weekend trips where I can sit around a fire and eat s’mores to satisfy some ingrained urge to . . . move. The human species has been migratory for most of its existence, and it’s only been recently that we haven’t had to heed the not-so-subtle cues to migrate or die.

Old habits are rising up from the span spent behind me, tailored now to a more mundane existance. Already I’ve begun to bring things in from the garden, things covered in sand and silt, spiderwebs and new, yellow leaves, carrying the smell of summer with them. Most go into boxes into the basement, but a few, pulling on even older threads, make it into my office.

Pika, my long-time desk guardian, will have a few companions while the snow and ice hit the reset button this year. He could use the help, frankly, in reminding me that this work is hard, and that only with a steadfast, almost blind perseverance and a good nature, will anything come of it.