Autumn

I'm sitting at home wrestling unsuccessfully with some virus or other. I've been spoiled by relative resistance to diseases over the year. When the rest of the family gets ill, I merely got tired and grumpy. But the years are catching up.

This has been a lovely Autumn, something we don't get every year. So, walking to work has sent me into reveries about Fall colours, dying, death and re-birth. Why do we associate Autumn with starting out? The school year begins. Football and Hockey start over. And yet Nature is retreating, preparing for the sleep of Winter

And does any of this tell us something about ourselves when we enter our own personal Autumn? I would argue that Nature, beautiful in every season, is at it's best now: Colourful, brilliant, especially on the grey days that we're likely to see. Are we at our best in our Autumn?

Thomas Aquinas apparently said that we reach our prime from 50 to 70 years of age. Is this our Autumn? Should we start out anew in these late months of our life, armed with experience, education and intelligence? Well, experience anyway.

The colourful leaves drop, winter's sleep ensues. But beneath the white coat the dead leaves are preparing to nourish new life in the Spring. If we refuse to live our lives to their peak at these late stages, are we denying those to come nourishment for their Spring? Didn't our parents and their generation give themselves completely to life, enriching us in the process?

Random thoughts at a keyboard while recovering from one of life's little insults.