Autumn comes to those of us on the gulf coast on tentative winds. We anxiously await the first cold front of the season and by the time that first arctic air has traveled the length of our continent, it holds little sway with the warm gulf air. But – the hint of fall comes, and despite continuing 90 degree days, the sun begins its annual slide towards a different angle and the promise of respite from long summer heat begins.
The tallow tree begins to show out, whether from drought or cold or just the sheer fact it misses China and the quiet, floating oak leaves, like brown snowflakes, will fall until well after Christmas. But promise they do, the cycle of cooler days.
My Texas sky is often a cloudless blue, but its that blue of an Indian summer, and once autumn has passed, will give way to damp, gun metal gray winter ones.
Today, as I sit and ponder this Monday, the Houston sky is that gray one that in other climes could promise snow. The wind is howling down from the north and I am going to have to put on sweats, the first time in a while, as I go about my work. The clash of cold north wind and warm gulf air makes the atmosphere around me turbulent and if I was in another frame of mind, disturbing. But today, it’s sweeping my heart clear and there is lightness in my being, because of something that happened yesterday.
A young injured soldier spoke in church instead of the pastor. It was the one year anniversary of a horrible life th