BRING IT ON MOTHER NATURE!

Summer roses in our garden

Preparing my yard for autumn and a long cold winter, a detestable end of the summer ritual, proceeded forth today without notice. The world kept rotating. I always considerate it a “life sucks” adventure. Behind me rests summer memories of travel, warm pleasant times, grilled food outdoors and pleasant gatherings with family members. Ahead winter positions itself like a monstrous Sasquatch threatening with cold, icy days, dreary gray, bleak skies, and bone-chilling temperatures. For me, winter is a “life sucks and then you die” trauma. Once, before making Idaho my home, I longed for the crispness of autumn, colored brilliantly with trees toasting the advent of rainy winter days, and the smell of burning wood from homey fireplaces, smoke wafting through the rain-fresh air. That was then in California, and now is now in Rexburg, Idaho. The “now” finds me scurrying to clip and cut back the overgrowth of summer, stashing away yard ornaments, delicate hybrid roses, and pots that quite possibly could succumb to the brutality of Sasquatch. I worry about my ornamental Koi hibernating beneath miniature granite-boulder caves in the pond soon to be camouflaged by ice and snow.

Koi enjoying summer

Yet, those mentioned memories of traveling to London melt the frozen mind-snows as I review my photos, and fill my mind with adventure among the Brits. I love the British Isles. Scotland, my ancestral heritage, especially surfaces as a favorite destination. However, spending a few days in London this summer, taking side trips to Brighton, a seaside resort on the south coast, and York, a medieval city with a magnificent cathedral at its core, contributed to a forgetfulness of that which was left behind in the U.S.

London's Big Ben

Royal Pavilion at Brighton, George IV's "playhouse"

London Tower - "off with their heads"

A grotesque at Westminster Cathedral

Escape, defined as breaking free from confinement and control, perfectly describes travel. An opportunity to empty, and refill with new energy is necessary for survival of the human. One’s mind and spirit becomes confined and smothered, yearning, even demanding to be set free to sponge up others’ creative juices in magnificent architecture, and the historic leftovers exhibited in museums. Art stimulates and encourages the spirit to soar, and to breathe new life into the mind and soul. Eyes are opened to new possibilities. Rejuvenation!

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Megan & Ryan

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

So, allow autumn her privilege of whispering what is yet to come. Mother Nature may be cruel and harsh this winter, but as autumn’s warning of the impending arrival of winter is confident, and beyond any doubt winter will kill what autumn has not, so is my confidence that life, for me, might suck were it not for those flashbacks of summer travel, family gatherings, and food grilling on the barbeque. Bring it on, Mother Nature.

Eating a Philly Steak Sandwich

S'mores around the fire in McCall

Amy celebrating her birthday in McCall with a giant cinnamon roll