Looking Ahead

As a person who is chronically jumping from one unfinished job to the next exciting new prospect, the act of looking ahead is always tinged with a bit of guilt and doubt. 

"Is it really time to focus on that upcoming task?"
"What have I left undone?"
"Am I afraid of whatever I'm leaving behind?"
"Will anyone really notice that I have one black and one dark brown crock on, really?"

But the end of summer is all looking ahead for me.  The summer is so exhausting (in a wonderful way, of course) that by the time it comes to its close I am ready and willing.  The fall brings such new cozy and inward-looking adventures, and the change is so clear in its coming, that I can't help but look forward.  It's not like the other seasonal changes that seem to sneak up on you, where you find yourself wondering, "When did it get cold enough to snow? " Or you find yourself walking through a forest that just days before was bleak and desolate, the only sign of green the frosty lichen on the trees, and now it is suddenly bursting with little green shoots of life.  Fall comes charging in, red banners unfurled, blazing in the last heat waves of summer.
"I am coming!" says Fall, "And I'm bringing a mess-load of pumpkins!"

I live in New England.  That's how Fall talks over here. 

This fall is bringing a lot of changes to our household.  But the thing I think I am looking forward to the most is the blessed, beautiful, benevolent Schedule.  Oh my lovely, how I've missed you!  I never thought I'd say those words, but I tell you I have been a little lost without it.  I type it out, put it on the fridge, and follow it's directives like a love-sick slave.  Tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do....

No unplanned early vegetables to process and hide away.  No more impromptu sojourns to the beach.  Just wonderful stability. 

Now, it is entirely possible that I am romanticizing this just a little.  The same way, in February, I romanticized the bounty of the harvest.  But for now, before I actually have to obey my Schedule Master, it does seem worth looking forward to.  Predictability, and that mess-load of pumpkins.