I've always been a sky freak.  I love a great sunrise; interesting clouds no doubt cause those nearby to cringe at my unrelenting comments; a striking sunset makes me embarrassingly giddy.

And I ain't going to apologize - an interesting sky is the teacher's pet of the atmospheric classroom.

So when I find myself on the Texas Gulf Coast in my genetic hometown of Rockport -- a special place I've been coming for family time since I was conceived -- it's a looked forward to pleasure to grab a little exercise via a walk from my parents' home to the nearby beach road as the sun lowers over Aransas Bay.

This particular visit found me here unplanned due to some ongoing, unresolved health issues with my sweet momma. We're in the early throes of generational hand-off where adult child edges into care giver.

Inevitable if you're blessed to have your folks live into old age, but I dare to pose that I'm not the only one that entered that door emotionally kicking and screaming in fine 2 year old fit fashion. Not because I don't want to return the favor of having taken care of me for quite a few years, of course,but because I don't like seeing my parents become elderly. Can we push the rewind button, please and thank you?

With things in order enough to take a stroll, I set out to absorb some of my favorite time of day.

The rewards were plentiful: aquamarine low-lit skies, fragrant sea breeze laced with Live Oak perfume, bay water tickling a shelled beach, scrappy wildflowers, and seagulls mocking me from above.

A nice twilight walk ( okay...some wine, too) was a good ending to a couple of days of little sleep, and I reveled in the familiar sights of this old town that shared themselves with me this evening.  Hope you enjoy them, too.

The beloved season of fall has finally found favor and decided to fully announce its arrival in the Texas hill country today!  After each and every long, hot, dry Texas summer (some worse than others), most of us around these parts fully celebrate the advent of cooler weather, and especially the first "biggie" like today's rainy cool front.  I am appropriately making festive by drinking a second cup of hot coffee while luxuriously wrapped in my fuzzy pink robe.....ahhhhh, the sweet and simple things in life!  

As I drove home late morning after a great little Zumba workout, I was treated to a journey, albeit along a most familiar path, of newness covered in old.  Kind of a juxtaposition of words, but bear with me.  The new was this morning's presentation of much cooler temps than we've seen in a long while, a healthy dose of refreshing rain, and a seemingly more noticeable pronouncement of the season's change.  Which brings the "old" into play.  As summer closes shop, all of creation is making note;  the trees have taken on a tired green even as some are releasing an almost audible sigh of relief and handing over their active lives for the respite of dormancy.  Delicate hues of gold are appearing, while some early birds such as our Texas pistachios are just now garnering the spotlight with their "me first" shows of brilliant fuchsia and orange.  The delicate native grasses are taking on a splendor as they seem to almost manically be growing and blooming to assure their propagation for the warm season.  The air feels different.  The sounds of the day seem to have a quieter, more hushed way of going about.  Creation is following the Grand Design and gently, for the most part, handing off its rambunctious time of growth and vigor to the quieter, softer season of fall.  The quiescent slumber of winter can't be far behind.

Maybe it's my tendency to wax a little too poetic sometimes, but seasons changing always bring to thought
(at least in my middle age years) the comparison of the seasons of our lives.  I love the Design of this...the passage of time in ways that can be marked, celebrated, lived in, mourned, and always bring the joy and sadness of things moving on, things changing.  I kick and scream as much as the next person when it comes to changes I don't like, and we all have our laundry list of those.  But the beauty therein is the predictability that our Maker has woven into these changes.  Yes, spring begets summer which begets fall which....and so on, and oh, how we can and do glory in the outward showing of each of these changes; almost as if we have seen our first spring or fall!  And so is with the season of our lives.  We celebrate the chapters, and we also marvel at how they change, and often with healthy melancholy at the change.  But there is peace in the predictability, in the knowing.  Oh, how I try to remind myself to savor the season of life I'm currently blessed to be in, just as I easily find and take joy in each outwardly season.  

So just like the trees, I find myself in a season of life where I reluctantly have to acquiesce to some outwardly changes I may not find so thrilling.  Vanity?  Possibly, probably -- but maybe also that tangible marking of time passing that doesn't really scare me, but perhaps causes a stubbornness to arise in having to 
relinquish -- relinquish what?? -- the passage of time, I suppose.  The trees can teach me here, teach me to accept, celebrate, and look forward to the changes that come with giving up one season to meld into another.  I'll try to be a good student.  

Tinges of Red

Herald floating unseen –

down highway of golden sunbeam;

it’s time to let go.

Tinges of red on furthest reach

decorate tip of tired leaf;

sweetening its inevitable decline.

Is it with grudge or tired relief?

Maybe no thought, just trust and belief;

seasons change.

Daylight’s reigned on shortened tether,

crisp breeze warns of changing weather;

rest is coming.

Tinges of red frame cycles of change,

on leaf, in sky, in aged vein;

quiet passing of life.

Renewal rests hidden in silent cell,

promise of life as the ages do tell;

resurrection on the other side.

 Paula Reynolds

October 18, 2008