Changing of the Seasons...

It is September...this is the week that Stuart starts school and it seems very strange to only have one child left in public school. As a junior in high school, there isn't much left of this part of the adventure for him either. At the risk of sounding irritatingly sentimental, it only seems a few years since his first day of kindergarten! Even though when I look at him, I definitely see a 16 year-old, somewhere there is that freshly-scrubbed and ever-reluctant 5 year-old too!

Meanwhile, the season is definitely changing here. It has been cool at night and we have had some rain and bluster. The past two mornings have been a bit cool and misty as well. There is no doubt that summer is going to be forced to give way to Autumn. Lucy is getting ready to start at the University of Oregon, Lilly is still trying to figure out what she wants to do and I am going through some seasonal transitions as well. This autumn seems particularly poignant and obvious--perhaps since we had such a busy and full summer.

I definitely feel as though we are part of this larger shifting of the seasons--we are paying close attention to what is going on politically, I am planning my trip to Germany in mid-October, I have a few different friends who are moving and going through some big changes as well, and there is an uncertainty in the air as to what sort of "winter" we will all face. Obviously, there is nothing we can do to stop the changing of the seasons and I don't imagine I would want to change the process anyway.