Fall

Well, this feels nice. It’s 63 outside this morning. I actually discovered this around 3 a.m. when my internal clock kicked me awake. I’ve had discussion with it about timing, but it refuses to listen. I’ve learned from bitter experience that tossing and turning in bed will do no good. Better to kick the blanket to the floor and get up. A quick walk on the porch and a cup of instant hot chocolate has mysterious powers, and I’m usually back in bed and off to dreamland. That’s what happened this time. The cool air certainly helped.

The arrival of fall may kickstart my lethargic self. I tend to go to ground when the summer heat makes its appearance. There’s a little bit of work that needs doing, mostly trimming around the edges. Luckily, the hiatus this summer was relatively brief. In fact, the lack of 100-degree days and better than average rainfall meant I was still able to go about my weed-pulling business even if it was in sporadic forays. Day before yesterday, for instance, I pulled up a random bit of poke weed left over from my adventure last year with the plant. I decided it should live elsewhere. There’s a big one out by the fence on the street.

Of course, sometimes I find myself doing stuff without really thinking about it and then I don’t remember I did it and I feel lazy even though that’s probably not the case. It’s just that working in fifteen-minute spurts doesn’t really feel like work. Maybe that’s a good approach. I mean there are 24 hours in the day, which means there are 96 fifteen-minute chunks, which means you could probably get in five or six hours of work without really even thinking about it. So, maybe I’m more productive than I realize. Or, maybe I’m just fooling myself, because that happens a lot to me.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale