Other People's Kids

Saturday Mornings...Aaaahhhhh

I sit here listening to the coffee perk, watching the sun rise and counting my blessings. I have two beautiful "daughters" and an even more beautiful wife snoring away in their respective bedrooms (she'll deny it, but The Wife snores like a Mack truck sometimes). It's silent and still outside, and it's nearly peak fall foliage season.

The aspen gives us sprays of bright yellow, here and there a maple glows that special orange, the oaks stand starkly in their solid brown robes, various kinds of trees and underbrush give us a more general yellow mellowing away to tan, and in our neck of the woods the plentiful sumac stitches a framework of fiery red through the whole portrait.

A few traces of clouds brilliantly reflect the rising sun down on the world. The upper reaches of the trees now brighten as the rays reach them, leaving the lower reaches of the woods to momentarily dwell on the last traces of the night's darkness before they too give in to the new day's promise and yield up the full measure of their color to this wondrous fall landscape.

Yes, winter is coming--and that will yield its own pleasures and sorrows--but look at what is here now. It's glorious, glorious autumn in full bloom, and he who doesn't drink it in and revel in it while he can is a damned fool.

A day will (hopefully) come when I'll be an old man sitting in my chair and contemplating a life nearly finished. I'll be looking back on all the people I shared my life with, counting the mistakes and triumphs, and pulling back certain memories to get me through the long remainder of my days.

This morning will certainly be one such memory.

posted by Dan @ 5:38 AM