The smell of Autumn

This is my most favorite time of year. I love everything about it! I am no longer a slave to a dying lawn and those pesky weeds. But now is the time to settle back and let things kind of slide. The looming winter is on its way and that constant thought is in my mind.

While walking through the neighborhood I can smell people have had their fireplaces going. This is the perfect time for the comfort of the fire to snuggle up with a quilt and a good book.

Yesterday morning I was up early to get ready for church and I felt something in the air that seemed that there was a big change occurring...snow. Yes that is right -- snow -- the first of the season. I felt compelled to take my camera with me as I made my trek to church and took a few shots of the autumnal snow fall. As I ventured out I was wary of this sudden change in the weather. I have always in the back of my mind -- how is this weather going to affect my asthma? As much as I enjoy this time of year it also heralds a time of my humanness and how I can be affected in quite dramatic ways by the weather.

I spent one serious winter where when I was outside I had my face covered with my scarf and the asthma inhaler in my pocket at the ready. My routine was use that inhaler then cover my face go outside wait for the special bus to take me to the building of my next class and when I got in I would again have to use the inhaler. This was repeated several times everyday and each time I exited every building. To top that off I also had virtually no voice -- only something that was a cross between a graveling squeaky thing. I was like that all winter and well in to the spring.

Today as I contemplate my humanness as well as my health I sit snuggled with a quilt and reading a book -- On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Friedrich Schiller...not your average good book...not even a good book a very difficult treatise on the Aesthetics, not an easy read but interesting work on how his mind is working.

Every year since that winter I had this secret dread for the changing of seasons. I fear that I will have another bad asthma winter. But for now I will try to enjoy this beautiful season called Autumn.