One Year

Fall is coming on strong in Olympia now. Noticeably less light. I walk to work in morning twilight these days. The weather is increasingly cloudy and often wet. The foliage is still on most of the trees and the landscape mostly green but fall colors are everywhere I look. Brilliant reds, yellow, orange, green prominent in both the gray landscape and the still frequent sunshine.

This is my first full fall in Olympia. I arrived here last year at this time but this year I'm experiencing the full turning of the season from summer. Some people I've met here speak of fall and the coming darkness much like I did about April in Arizona. I do not feel that way at all and seem to revel in the extended dark hours. Maybe it's because they're good for writing.

Mornings of late remind me very much of being cold and damp on some damn training ground at Fort Lewis. I've never forgotten how the cold seeped into me as I stood in formation usually waiting for something or other. Today's cold damp fog brought those recollections sharply to the fore. I walk more briskly these days.

These days also remind me of September in Maine as I closed in on the final miles of the Appalachian Trail. Olympia is not as dark as the Maine woods but the wet weather and flying leaves foretell change as much as those fall days six years ago. Like those long-gone days, I'm at peace and so very happy to be just where I am.