August 19th

I can feel the weather changing already. Fall is coming. Nights are quite cool now, and there is a brisk, refreshing breeze during the day. This week I took out some warm sweatshirts and pullovers from the closet for the upcoming days. I think fall is my favorite season — and it has to do with the colors. Everything seems crisper and more like in high definition when the air is no longer stagnant and humid and sticky. I remember how much I loved going on long drives in September and October to Catskills and Poconos when I lived in New Jersey just to enjoy the autumn foliage. Here, in north-east Poland forests are mostly coniferous but there is a good mixture of deciduous trees as well, so yellows and reds and even purple patches are visible. Most of the fields are harvested already — over the last couple of nights I could see a definite yellowish “harvest moon” in dark skies. Storks are gathering in big groups in those harvested fields getting ready to fly to Africa. At work I hear a lot about mushroom picking— what kind of mushrooms and how much was found by this and that person (not surprisingly, no one talks exactly where they were — that is always a private, top-secret knowledge). There are still several weeks of warm days expected during early September Indian summer. Everything with me and around me feels nice and easy. I will just enjoy it, day by day, week by week, month by month, season after season. How wonderful is to experience all that with a sober mind and just to be happy!