Yesterday’s travel back to Cleveland went without a hitch. It turned out to be a pretty fall day. When I started out from Covington, the hills were hazy and there was an overcast. When I got to Columbus a couple hours later, the sun was breaking through and the temperature rose immediately from 54, which it had been all morning, to 58, and from there on it climbed slowly into the 60s.
In the sunshine the colors became brighter as I drove north. Once, looking at a hillside, it brought back a strong memory of the hills as I drove out of Salt Lake City in September 2009. It was raining lightly and they looked like a lovely paisley shawl. Could it possibly have been only five years ago that I took that trip west? It seems like it must have been longer ago.
Autumn is Nature’s way of celebrating the end of the harvest. What have I reaped this year? A week in Hawaii, two lengthy visits to relatives in New York, a study tour in Greece with a visit to dear friends there, a 50th anniversary party, sharing the excitement of family trekking in the Himalayas, better eyesight and new glasses for me, a couple months staying with my daughter and son-in-law, a scanner that works with my computer, 14 pints of applesauce canned, another milestone reached in settling Sally’s estate. I’d say it has been a productive year! (When I go to the chiropracter, about once every few months, he always asks what project I’m working on now. There's always some project, he knows.)
The colors of the fields, though muted, in shades of amber to siena to mauve, and every variation in between, are as pleasant to the eye as the turning leaves. I hear the migrating birds; I don’t see them, but I hear their unfamiliar calls. The squirrels are busily burying their hoards of winter food, much of it in my newly re-seeded patch of lawn. Any earth that is loose is immediately claimed as their pantry. If I plant flowers, they dig right next to it to hide their latest prize.
Speaking of planting, I have a whole bag of tulip bulbs to plant when I return home. Something to look forward to. But that will be a couple weeks yet.
Today I am having surgery on my left eye. We did not have to get up so early this time. I am to arrive at 12:55 for pre-op preparations. Since I can’t have anything to eat or drink this morning, I have busied myself solving a problem with the Family Tree program on my computer. It insisted on recording one marriage twice and was lousing up the print-outs. In the end I had to remove some info and then put it in again. But it kept me focused and occupied and helped me not to think of food.
Dick and Flo and Fred have been reinstated and await me on my nightstand. I don't look forward to their ministrations, nor to the eye shield and the sticky tape, but this too will pass. And before I know it I will have new glasses! What a blessing that will be.
Be seeing you....sometime.
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