"Like being everything you are all at once."

The weather turns earlier in Michigan than it does in New England. I had forgotten.

The last few mornings, I have donned a fleece before sleepily stumbling to the barn to feed breakfast. That first shock of warm softness against sun-weathered skin still manages to surprise.

Two days ago, my mother and I dismembered a young tree growing behind the barn. Late August's suddenly forceful winds had begun assaulting its branches and bending its narrow trunk over the fence separating it from the riding arena, and its clatter and snap and spastic gestures had scared my horse. We amputated limb after limb until only a triangular tuft of green remained at the top; the trunk remained standing, having greatly overmatched our flimsy saw. In the aftermath, the breeze swiftly bypassed the newly gaunt figure whose ashen skin warned of the gray-brown days to come. It was only after the taking-down that I realized just how much the tree had grown.

Down came the branches, down go the temperatures, down goes the sun in the deepening sky. Evenings arrive earlier now; darkness surprises rather than procrastinates. And while I miss the post-1opm sunsets -- one of the few benefits of living on the Western edge of Eastern time -- I much prefer sixty degrees to ninety and gusty briskness to stagnant humidity. The anticipation of autumn is a prickly and welcome sensation.

Fall has always held some promise of (ironically) renewal and structure. Renewal because fall births school years and theatre seasons, structure because such institutions drop me into a template of regimentation. I like a measured existence, and love autumn for offering one up every year.

(Even the clouds roll in with new-found organization, uniformly sized and shaped and spaced, proud battallions methodically advancing across a wild blue battlefield.)

When I wake up to September tomorrow, I will still be in Michigan. New England will wait for me; it will still be autumn when next I visit. This fall lacks the gleam of its predecessors, but it will suffice. I begin a new job in two weeks, and though it requires a mere teaspoonful of intellect compared to my last position, it still brings a framework and financial gain in with the season. The farm will still consume my mornings, and until Octuber 10, all spare time will belong to GRE subject test preparation. My location will not change, but my life's boundaries will harden in the cool crispness. I will look East for nostalgia, I will look West for inspiration, but mostly I will look forward. It's time to bury the wayward summer.