Patience

The weather has turned. It is raining just about every day now, and I am grateful for the golden and orange and red leaves on the trees, that bring some badly needed color to the grey, watery skies. Ah, summer, with its blue expanses of sky, its warm breezes, its abundance of brightly and fragrant flowers, its sweetly twittering birds, its long days with plenty of light, its starry nights... Now, it is dark when we get up, it is dark by dinnertime, the flowers are fading, the wind is stripping the trees of their colorful leaves, it is getting colder, drearier. It seems we have to resign ourselves to the cycle of nature, where there is summer, and also fall, inevitably leading to winter. Ice, snow, blocked and dangerous roads, storms. The word that comes to mind is patience. Nature is slowing down this time of year, and maybe we should too. It is a hard thing to do, to accept we have no control over these changes of seasons, other than maybe move somewhere, if you can afford to do so, where the sun shines year round. Patience is a dish with little flavor, and it tends to be chewy, not easy to digest. I kept thinking the last week or so, what are the benefits of patience? It kind of feels like wine. If our beings were like wine in a solid container, it takes time and its reasoning to make it palatable. It is a tedious process, but a necessary and inevitable one, if we ever want our essence, our "wine", to become something of value. So, we grid our teeth, we find solace in a good fire in the fireplace, a  hearty stew, some good conversation with good friends, some time to reflect, to read, to learn, and swallow the melancholy about losing the warm sun and all the charm summer brings. Sometimes we have to just let our hearts and souls sit,and season, with the demands nature puts on our longings and dreams. Patience, almost a four letter word, but really a recipe to add some strengthening salts to the dishes that make up the course of our lives.