I used to love fall. It was my favorite time of the year. The weather here has been hot and dry. Leaves are already falling off the trees and gathering in my yard, waiting for further instruction. We've had a few cool mornings, giving us a preview of a change of season. But I don't enjoy fall the way I used to. I'm too old. I've begun to see the breakdown in my body that commences somewhere "mid-life." My face now has to "wake up" in the mornings. (Note to self: no photo shoots until noon or later.) Things hurt, get stiff - things like knees. Forget prayer, contrition, or metaphoric declarations of love. AGE is what is hardest on the knees. But they don't tell you that in song. Songs always have people "down on their knees." Maybe those songwriters were just old. Maybe they were stuck down there and couldn't get back up. Maybe those songs are more about calcified cartilage than amore.
And I've lost people. People I’m finding out, for the first time in my life, what it’s like to live without. People who had always been here who aren’t here anymore. I came from a family of 5. We're down to 3. So watching summer wind down, watching green turn to brown, makes me uncomfortable. It makes me rebellious. I want to get in my car and drive to the ocean. I want to see something that has always been there that still IS there. I want an affirmation of life. I want to watch green turn to blue. Brown is not my favorite color.