There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1560)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
We tried out this trail on another lovely, low humidity day. We wound up getting lost and reluctantly decided to cut through somebody’s yard to get back to a road. Summer is fading away, as it always does, each day a minute or two shorter than the last. Emily’s poem has an added layer of meaning for me, now, as I take note of Tim’s breaths becoming shorter, too.
An accurate observation by Miss Dickinson, and a poignant one about Tim. 🙁 Is he on portable oxygen at this point?
Not yet. His oxygen levels are still above 90% but he will be tested again in November with a six-minute walk while monitoring his oxygen levels. 🤞
Thank you for the poem. September in North Carolina is lovely. I’m glad you are out walking.
You’re welcome, Anna. It is a wonderful time a year here and it’s great being outside more often.
It’s funny how end-of-summer seems to arrive all at once, isn’t it? The days are getting shorter, so the sunlight fades earlier and the temperatures don’t have time to rise as much — making for some spectacular weather. I’m sorry to hear your hubby’s having breathing problems, and I trust he’s under a doctor’s care … and yours!
This interval between summer and autumn is a wonderful time to enjoy the light which isn’t too bright nor as dim as it is on the solstices. Thank you, Debbie, for your well wishes for Tim. He’s definitely under the care of a pulmonologist now, and August was full of appointments and testing. He starts a new drug today so we’re hopeful.
I’ve never been lucky at photographing dragonflies but this is a nice photo of one Barbara. I also like the twin webs – a resourceful spider it seems. You are resourceful too, finding a way to get back to familiar territory. I’ve gotten lost in the woods before – it’s not fun and even worrisome. I’m glad you are back to your nature walks after a long Summer of heat and humidity. I read the other day that we lose 80 minutes of daylight in the month of September. I always hated this time of year when I worked as the sun rose later, so my walks were shorter, just like with the time change which would mess me up. As I read the poem I thought of human breaths too; my thoughts are with you and Tim.
Thank you, Linda. It’s not the best dragonfly shot I’ve ever gotten. They are so difficult to catch in the right lighting and at a good angle, even when they’re sitting still. My zoom was on max for this one – I think they come out much better when I can get closer. But, I took what I could get on a relatively uninspiring photo walk. I was afraid the homeowner might be upset with us trespassing and might sic a dog on us or threaten us with a gun, but fortunately it seems that nobody was at home. I never minded the shorter days, but then again, I never had to squeeze in a walk before I went to work. It used to be fun shoveling the car out in the dark, in the winter when it snowed, so Tim could leave for work on time. But then again, I could go inside and have a cup of hot chocolate after he left. 🙂
I follow the Metroparks Photographers Facebook site, (all amateur photographers at the 13 Michigan Metroparks), and they get so many photos of dragonflies – I didn’t know that many types exist. They are also finding a lot of butterflies I’ve never seen in the the Metroparks I go to around here. I would shovel in the dark too, before work or after work, but when there was/is enough snow, it seemed to illuminate everything so that was nice too. Our house has a pole light and a streetlight across the street, so not totally dark which is why I don’t go out for the Aurora – all I get is those lights. I like shoveling on a Sunday morning after a snowfall where few cars are on the street and it feels very peaceful as the snow masks all the noise. Workdays I would come in and finish getting ready for work and get dressed to leave on the bus. It was nicer when I worked from home – just come in and deal with the snowy/wet clothing and take time to savor something hot and have a snack as I was hungry from all the shoveling and my breakfast was in my toes.
That was nice of you to shovel out Tim’s car so he didn’t have to do it and still get to work timely. When we lived in Canada, our house was on the bend of the street, which was a cul de sac and that bend meant all the snow would drift and pile up in our driveway. We had a gravel driveway so I don’t think that would be great shoveling as you’d have to pick up all the gravel in the Spring before your first mowing. But we had the VW Beetle and many times my father would go out to shovel and it looked like a big igloo out in the driveway. I don’t know if it was the Beetle or the Meteor (which was pictured in Sunday’s post), but in the dead of Winter when it was really cold, he had some device to warm the engine block, so he set the alarm a few hours before going to work, turned it on, then went back to work for more sleep before the alarm went off. It would warm the engine block and guarantee the car would start as he had to be at work at 7:00 a.m.
So many winter memories… We lived on the town line and our driveway ended right where the road crossed it. Snow plows from both towns would turn around and leave whatever snow they had pushed up right at the end of our dirt driveway. It did make for some nice snow forts on either side of the driveway, although my parents didn’t enjoy shoveling out a path for the cars. When our much older cousin would arrive in his Chevrolet El Camino for his Friday evening visits we would pelt his car with snowballs from our respective forts on either side of the driveway…
I can imagine your parents’ faces when they saw the big piles of snow from the snow plows because I have the same type of grimace as people park on either side of my driveway and the snowplow goes around the two cars, then goes up the opposite side and pushes the snow it plows toward the end of my driveway. I have had to shovel the end of the driveway out over several days if it is heavy, wet snow – grrr. I loved making snow forts too. All the kids in the neighborhood were around the same age and we would make and play in our snow forts. We’d be outside for hours, bundled up and playing in the snow. I remember the El Camino as a customer at the diner had a lemon-yellow El Camino and always parked close to the window so he could keep an eye on it – I thought you were going to say you threw snowballs into the back bed of the vehicle!
I’m sitting here smiling, wondering how we got from dragonflies to El Caminos! I’m trying to picture a lemon-yellow one and realized I don’t remember what color my cousin’s was. He was 21 years older than me, a confirmed bachelor (until he got married at age 37), who was a lot of fun for my sister and me. He used that El Camino to go moose hunting with his buddy in Canada every year, and brought the moose meat home in the back of it. After we were put to bed upstairs on Friday nights we would hear him telling stories of his adventures to my parents and aunt downstairs, sitting around the dining table. He was a great storyteller.
He sounds like a wonderful person, full of adventures and always a story to tell. I had a great-uncle who quit his job as the produce manager at a grocery store and he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia to open an antiques store. He had been an antiques collector for years and so he bought a house with a living room which he converted into the antiques shop for those collectibles. He missed his family though. Joe was adopted as a baby and was one of my grandmother’s brothers, but in a family of 10 kids, he, the 10th child, never felt like he wasn’t one of them. He stayed a year in Vancouver, then sold the house/store, with all his furniture and collectibles and flew back to Guelph, Ontario, with just his clothing. He was kind of a character … maybe there is one in every family?
I’ve definitely been noticing the shortening of the days. The change seems to happen so fast at this time of year, and so so slowly in the winter. Perhaps it is simply my impatience for spring to arrive. Love both the dragon fly and the twin spider webs!
Summer does seem to slip away quickly while winter seems to drag on for months. You must be busy getting to know your new batch of students and getting settled in for a new semester. I hope you get a few nice fall-weekend walks in the coming months!