The temperature dropped last night. When I let the dogs out this morning the cool air on my face surprised me. Charlie lifted her nose and sniffed appreciatively. For months I had felt the thick heat of an earth uncooled by night envelop me when I opened the door for them, and my body would sigh in lethargic anticipation. But for the first time this summer the air outside was cooler than inside the air-conditioned house. Fall had fired a warning shot across summer’s bow.
The moment sobered me, crystallizing my senses into narrower focus. It felt like my blood vessels were shrinking with the colder air, dousing the summer fever from which I had been afflicted, when heat had swelled my brain and fire seemed to devour my thoughts. My mind had rallied a very poor defense against the flames. But suddenly I recognized where I was in time, the hint of season’s change catapulting me into the present moment. It felt strange, as if I were time traveling. In a way perhaps I had been.
Loss seemed to kaleidoscope around me this spring and summer, folding into my body in layers of scar tissue, absorbing in the fascia in some kind of epic shape shifting. I tried to alter my perspective by rotating the eyepiece, trying to find patterns in the combinations of grief interlocking, the way one can make colors dance in the viewfinder. I was strangling on the beauty wrought from calamity, from death, disease, and divorce. The summer heat had conducted these wounds rapidly, deep into my core. But the warmth also dulled the edges of my consciousness, creating an emotional pliability from which I could smudge the lens of my inner gaze.
Now my mind felt as clear as the blue sky overhead, devoid of humidity, of steamy opacity. I watched the dogs frolic on the lawn, knowing they had felt the change coming well before me. I glanced at the flowerpots on the terrace and noticed the petunias had gotten leggy, the deep green foliage having faded to a sage color. The pain of memories returning felt sharp, the way sore muscles will spasm when cold. But I understood that being able to feel these losses would also allow me to release them. A single leaf floating down from its high perch landed on the grass in front of Hank, his big black head following its descent. Summer might be ending, but time might find magic pockets come fall.
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