The sun is setting. I notice Padre Sol is a little to the left of where I’m used to watching it this time of day. A “little to the left” is about a foot and a half south of mid-summer according to the window that normally frames it at sundown. “Time Passages”, a song from Al Stewart plays in my head. I sit and mourn the moments gone forever at the same time that I feel fortunate to have experiences and memories that arouse. Bitter-sweet is the mood. I can’t complain. Poignancy is a luxury remember.
I have duties to perform before the chilly winds of October arrive. Today I pulled three small potatoes from the garden and a handful of kale to fry with them. Later I pulled most of the green beans from the poles next to the green house. I won’t starve tonight. I am freezing the green beans as directed by a culinary expert. Time passages. I could’ve planted more string beans. I’ll plant some bush bean seeds tomorrow. It’s only early August. With some luck I’ll get a few pounds probably. As long as the baby raccoons don’t play rough and tumble with them. That’s what happened to the earlier ones. I got one batch and the next day all the plants were flattened. It was obvious that night time wrestling was on the program for a few days.
Firewood pile is aplenty. I might chop some kindling when the days get cooler. I need to run a heated wire to the fuel line from the heating oil fuel-filter and feed-line to the house. I’m staying around this winter. I might run off to New Mexico/California later in the year before the cold arrives. We’ll see. Take a month or two away. I might drive a friend to Albuquerque as a favor. That will be an adventure. I still have that incorrigible trait to run down the road. It sits behind my eyes and waits for a trigger like this evening sun setting behind the red oaks across the backriver on Sawyers Island. That sun creeping toward the green-flash territory over California where I used to be half naked all day long. Body surf, jog, lie in the sun, making sun-tea, making love in the middle of the day. That part of the low sky territory.
I wonder if I’ll ever make love in the middle of the day again. That might be too much to ask.
Gentle George
9 August 2020
Playing Fair and Being Kind 
Beautiful piece, George. Almost nostalgic. Making me think of the once, reliable seasons. Regretting that the world did not, in 1970, when climate change was known, take action. Let’s hope we thrive.
Thank you, Nina. Good to hear from you, always. I miss seeing you. We have such great conversations normally. Telephones don’t do what sitting at a kitchen table does.