Before the gray and cold set in

The days are definitely growing shorter now -- by the time I got to the ferry after my Wednesday evening meeting, the sun had set and the big lights that illuminate the ferry waiting lot were already gleaming -- only a week ago I spent almost my whole waiting time photographing the sunset.

And though the weather is spectacularly gorgeous today, and warmer than it's been in what seems like weeks, you can feel it: change is in the wind.

Today was my daughter's boyfriend's last day at his summer job, so now the two of them have begun looking in earnest for whatever might come along next to pay their bills.  My husband's friend is home from the hospital -- though they had a bit of a scare this morning -- so he hopes to be heading home to us this evening.

The school buses are roaming the streets again, the town is filling up with tourists eager to celebrate the long weekend, and boats are starting to pepper the Sound, ready for a last weekend of play before the gray and cold set in.

For me, though I've spent the entire day running errands, there is a sense of expectancy and anticipation; a little like that feeling we used to get the week before Christmas.  I suppose it could just be years of conditioning for the onset of fall, but it feels like something exciting and wonderful is just around the bend. 

My schoolwork has been forcing me to take a pretty hard look at some of my ways of being in the world, and it's been feeling a bit at times like I'm in the spotlight, or in an interrogation room.  But the discoveries aren't really all that scary; it's more that they give me hope for change, both for myself and for the world.  If we can find a way -- or even if I can find a way -- to strike a better balance between love and power, between compassion and action, I do think we have a chance of making a significant difference.

But of course, the more I am beginning to believe in that possibility, the more negative predictions I hear from my friends.  And somehow I just have to juggle that, too; find a way to balance the negative and positive outlooks that can keep me/us moving forward into the light.

No one said it would be easy, or simple.

But no one said it couldn't be fun, either!  So I'm going to try to keep that sense of anticipation building, and see where it leads.