I rode along the canal this evening. It’s shifted. The seasons are changing. The temperature may be a couple degrees cooler. It may all look a little different. But the biggest difference is in the scent of the ride. The silage is very rank and strong. There’s fruit somewhere that’s past ripe and oversweet. The rice paddies have been drained and smell freshly cut. The poplars at canalside have reached their season’s end and smell of riversides in Eastern Washington. I even caught a whiff of Nicaragua, and identified the wood smoke in that whiff.
This is a time of my senses. Of being keenly tuned in. Of paying attention. I’m in another world, and yet it brings me to other worlds known.
I could hardly be more attentive. More observant. More inquisitive. There is nothing like this moment. I am alive to the fullness of it. I am very aware of all this time holds for me.