Author Archive
Blog Wordle
A Wordle of the Solitude Seeking blog.
About this time every year he starts to scan the extended weather forecasts hoping to see the first signs of impending autumn. Every day he checks the 10-day forecast in anxious anticipation of that first end-of-summer evening when the temperature dips into the 50’s. The summer heat wilts his brain, saps his energy and he is giddy with expectation for that click in his head signaling a return to normal thought processes and creative energy. He recognizes this isn’t entirely normal. As a child he had to rely on his physical senses, the local newspaper or evening news for hints and clues to the eagerly awaited change in seasons. Now he has at his disposal 24-hour weather updates on television, the Internet, even his cellular phone. It’s his one and only Obsessive Compulsion. “If only the leaves would start changing colors,” he thinks to himself. “It will all make sense when the greens go away and the oranges, reds and yellows return.”
He could be mistaken, but it seems like every Good Thing that’s ever happened to him occurred in the fall or winter. Conversely, it comes to mind that every Bad Thing has been accompanied by allergies, sunburns, bee stings and the Major League Baseball season. While winter shut-ins dream of June, July and August to shed their clothes and parade their bodies, he spends those same months looking forward to fresh colors and thinning crowds. He aches to walk forgotten paths covered in desiccated leaves and light frost. He longs to sit by slowed streams and commune with the universe in nature’s low rumbling seclusion. He remembers with fondness the acknowledging nods from similar stout-hearted souls along the trails, their cool breath trailing slightly behind as they pass. Summer is loudness. Fall descends into quiet. Winter embodies the solitude he so desperately seeks. “If only the leaves would start changing colors,” he thinks to himself. “It will all make sense when the greens go away and the oranges, reds and yellows return.”
I thought I would pop in for just a second to post some pictures from a walk this afternoon in the Sulphur Springs area of the South Chagrin Reservation.
