On Sunday I boated and maybe you did, too. It was that sort of Sunday. If you could boat, you did boat. One last ride, we all said. The skies were clear and so was the water. We love the former and expect the latter. The musky were down there, roaming and eating, preparing for the winter chill by terrorizing the ciscos. The leaves were drifting and swirling and piling into the shallow corners, around the bays and under the piers. Piers were in, but some were stacked. The sun was warm but the air was cool, just the way most people like it. The leaves were brilliant, and still are. Peak, that’s what it was and that’s what it still is. They’re soggy now, but not on Sunday. They were dry and crisp and bright and the sky was blue and the water, too. Everything was right, and I decided on that boat that the day was the finest day ever created. Imagine waking up in a place where the sameness of your surroundings look in October just as they did in June. What mundane misery that would be. There was once a movie about how lame things would be if you woke up to the same every day. We all agreed it would be a terrible thing.
The sunshine of Sunday turned to clouds of Tuesday and the crisp leaves that scattered in the breeze have since decomposed to mush. They’re not as spectacular when stuck to the sides of my car and to my tires and my shoes. The last farmer’s market was yesterday. A rainy, lackluster farewell it was. I met some folks at my office yesterday and I drove them around and pointed out the things I’ve been pointing out for 27 years. I told them of the things that are happening and the things that matter, mostly the same things that I tell everyone. But I sprinkled in commentary about how terrible the weather was. How soggy it was. How it would be nicer if it were nicer. How this was a bad day to see the things that on Sunday were so bright and perfect. I apologized for the weather as if it bothered me. I did this because I think this is what people want to hear. Just like in the winter when you walk into a warm house from the cold outdoors and you tell them how cold it is out while you shake the snow from your hat. The problem is I didn’t mean anything I said about yesterday. I liked the weather. I liked the clouds. I liked the sog. I liked the mist and the dull and the fade. I can’t help myself.