Evidence of Change

It must be official. We have various ways of marking off the places in our lives, like summer 2008, and last night the young guitarist and songwriter who entertained the last hour of the evening from the summer bandstand commented that he was a little sad. If we’re playing in the bandstand, “my favorite” gig, and its August, that means summer is almost over. And so it is.

We’ve had a fall preview over the last several days—temps in the 70s, dipping into the high 40s one night recently, I noticed in the forecast a few days ago. I’ve also noticed the prediction of a return to the high 80s later this week. While talking to a neighbor the other morning, I commented, “isn’t this weather great? The air feels,”—“like fall,” she completed.

Around the plaza this morning, where I’m using time while waiting for a gallery where I need to conduct some business to open, some people have on jackets, others have sweaters wrapped around their waists, or loosely tied over their shoulders. Funny how it looks so natural on a young athlete who ties his warm-up jacket in this manner, and so affected on someone who is making a fashion statement. I might as well tie an Aunt Jemima do-rag on my head and pretend that I’m off to work the cotton fields. No, let me not call attention to myself, even though with my bald, shaved head I could well use the protection. An Audubon ball cap, now sweat-soaked from months of use—walking and working, climbing and coming back down, does the job for me.

Fall colors and jackets dress the display window of the companion tony men’s and women’s boutiques just off the plaza. Winter apparel in the windows of Overland Sheepskin is always de rigeur, regardless of the time of year. As I headed out this morning for my ritual coffee and two-mile walk, I gave a little shudder at the front door, my t-shirt just a thread or two shy against the 55-degree temp at 7 a.m. Not for long, though, once I blistered into a brisk pace along what I’ve come to accept is the easiest choice for my routine. I love a change of scenery on a regular basis, but I’ve learned that some constants spare me the anguish of trying to change what already works.

I know it can’t be true, but I’ve imagined a hint of pinon smoke in the air recently. Maybe it’s the roasting of Hatch chiles around town, another sign that fall is on the way, playing tricks with my senses. Several days ago I put my quilt back on the bed. It had stayed there until early June, with May temps still winter-like at night. The floor fan that I’ve used this summer, both for moving the air around and for masking the evidence of neighbors coming through window and door and window in this community of close living, now begs for me a little buffer as it works. A book I’m reading on prayer compares our presence to that of boats on a river. We are so many that we fail to see the river that moves us along, the source of our lives. So closely situated are we, bow to stern to side, that we bump and nose and bruise, by habit when not by intent.

The event that officially marks the end of summer—Fiesta de Santa Fe—will happen a week after I return to Texas. As the nights cool down here—regularly dipping into the 40s—I will exchange floor fan and windows and doors open to the evening high desert air for the comfort we know deeper into the south of the west—the off and on of central air conditioning doing its own work to maintain a constant of 72 degrees as ceiling fans quietly spin overhead in my Texas barn home. There we will continue to await the coming of fall long past its official start on the autumnal equinox. There at night I will keep company with the coyotes who sing at dusk and announce the coming of day.

Evidence of Change—Santa Fe, New Mexico (August 21, 2008)

R. Harold Hollis