Labor Day

            I checked the forecast for Labor Day Weekend.  Normally I can’t look that far ahead in the summer because the portable radio I have at the beach seldom gives extended forecasts, but today I’m in shore.  We’re emptying the cottage refrigerator in preparation for shutting it down.  I pondered whether or not to bring in the gin, but there’s enough Rose’s lime juice for one more gimlet, and I still have some tonic.  No sense being rash. 

Still the summer’s winding down. I wanted to make a gallant presentation of a sprig of sea lavender to a woman visiting from Japan, but I couldn’t find any of the pale blue flowers that bloom underwater at high tide. The osprey chicks are flying now and their nest is often empty when I pass by.  The eel grass is getting a reddish hue.  The tree swallows are flocking up in preparation to migration.  I shall migrate as well. 

Having moved to my winter quarters, I’ll sleepily click a TV remote, and get a weather forecast in the morning.  I’ll have my evening drink without the view of Plymouth across the harbor, and I shall slowly revert to the consumption of martinis. I’ll summon the chimney sweep in preparation for fireplace fires.

I make my new year’s resolutions in September.    I intend to get into the city more often, travel the roads, pick apples with my grandchildren, and bake beans.  As do all who resolve, I fall short of my intentions, but my life changes.  No more will I buy boxes of chicken broth in the supermarket. On a cool day, I’ll simmer chicken parts and make my own broth to freeze.  I’ll knead bread, or at least pizza dough.  Cape Cod will unclog, at least on weekdays, and I’ll venture down Route 6A. 

I won’t get excited about peak foliage.  The turning of the leaves is a long and beautiful process.  There are the maples in Vermont and the swamp blueberries in Myles Standish State Forest.   There are the yellow locusts and the wine-red oaks.  Outside my bedroom window, the cherry tree that in spring looks like the froth on a strawberry ice cream soda will be resplendent in red-orange leaves. 

It is with fall as with the autumn of life – a season that must be taken a day at a time.  I’ll not look back to my daily walks when my feet splashed in the shallows of Cape Cod Bay, nor forward to the time when the pavements will be slippery with ice.  I’ll inhale the crisp air and give thanks.