On Autumn

The end of summer is always a quantum shift of sorts.  No other change in season is quite so pronounced or quite so disheartening; in addition to the new chill in the air, autumn ushers in the responsibilities of school for some and the nostalgia for those days in others.  W.B. Yeats conveys this unsettling dichotomy beautifully in his poem "The Wild Swans at Coole."  For Yeats, autumn marked the frenzied flight of swans from a cold pond to some warm unknown shore.  In their clamorous wings he saw both his own desire to flee the coming season and the pain of having to adapt, to leave things behind.  He felt and understood that our desire for escape inevitably coexists with our fear of it.  I have felt a bit nostalgic watching my cousins and some friends return to school, but my increasing awareness of the passage of time, of missed opportunities and regrets, is somehow making me fearless rather than crippling me with fear of continued failure.  I have adapted before and I am ready to adapt again - more ready than ever, in fact, because I am investing in people and activities that affirm rather than challenge and undermine my identity.  I have no doubt that I am embarking on warmer shores than those I laid on so carelessly during the hot months of summer.  Are you?