morning chill

Autumn arrived early. I'm not quite ready for the nip in the air, although there still remains something glorious in twiriling around in the leaves that swirl with wind gusts on their journey to the ground.

That point has not yet arrived, however. It is the awkward stage, the straddling of the two seasons, the warm and the cold, the daily wondering which will win out over the other but knowing full well which, in the end, will win the war. It is Mother Nature. It is time for our summer to end.

Dressing like an onion has never been a strong point. I had a friend in Japan who taught in the high school that my host-sister from my first orchestral trip to Japan in 1990 attended, and he was affectionately named "onion-boy" by the student body. In Japan, these cold days did not mean that we could seek refuge from the outdoor chill in the warm embrace of our workplace; indeed, the only heated areas of the schools were the teacher's room and the individual classrooms. Hallways were a brisque slap-across-the-face of the reality of the outdoor cold. We thus had to dress appropriately, wearing layers upon layers that, over the course of a class period while teaching, would be inevitably shed, as the rooms were not only heated but the heat was maintained by 40 uniformed bodies.

Hence the name "onion-boy."

I am thankful that I no longer have to tread outside each chilly morning to fill my kerosene tank for my heater and turn on my heated toilet seat. I don't miss frozen sponges in my kitchen sink and frozen shampoo in the shower. Certainly, experiences like these make one much more thankful for that which one does enjoy, while reminding me that I really do not have room for complaint!