While I was half complaining, half getting the most out of those hot summer days that reach over 90 degrees, summer has passed and gone. I suddenly find myself on my deck in the cold autumn breeze. Even with my black warm sweater, I feel the shiver. My body is not used to this chill any longer. This summer has been very, very long and steady. I can feel every cell in my body protesting to this sudden shock.

A few things come to my mind. My mind is gearing and preparing for the changes that are about to embark. The move to the new house we’ve been building for the past few years is finally to happen sometimes this fall. I think about all the big and small changes that this major move will cause in our lives. I am not moving far, but it’s enough to change my social circle slightly, and more time spent in isolation out in the country. It will mean more time on the road driving to places. But most of all, I am hoping that we will have more family time as my husband will be finished with his house building project that he undertook a few years back. It has been a surviving experience for all of us to say the least.

I always get into the mood to listen to Ice Age by Pete Yorn when the temperature drops and the fast down track to the winter begins. It’s a perfect melody for my war-torn psyche in need of rest. The image of the cold winter along the empty shore soothes my burdened heart. All spring and summer long, I had been brooding with overcrowded emotions and various mental states. The beginning of the fall signaled the weakening intensity of my clinical depression that grilled me during the entire spring and summer. Feeling almost relieved that I have survived the most dangerous seasons without killing myself, I used to renew my spirit as I renewed my wardrobe with fall and winter clothes.

It’s an ideal time to pack. Summer crowds are disappearing, pools are closing, everyone retreats back indoors, and there is nothing better to do than packing. So I’ve been collecting moving boxes, going through stuff to filter out the things that have outgrown our life styles. And even though I no longer suffer from seasonal depression, and my spirit is as vibrant and life-filled as I could ever be, it still fills good to renew.

I sit on my deck trying to remember the relief and the renewal the first autumn breeze used to awaken within my soul. Now, it is all a part of my memories, memories that awaken deeper understanding and empathy of those long suffering years when I had to rely on the first sign of autumn to find my only relief.

It’s only a month away from the fall equinox. And I wonder what kind revival this year’s autumn breeze will awaken to my already renewed soul.