2001-10-15 - 2:14 p.m.

And what of the seasons? The winter has loomed in the distance all year as great as death, invisible, shielded from view. It was the great demon vanquished by the coming spring, as the joy of life rolled out before me again, leaving behind the cold depressions of a cramped apartment forever, it seemed. So many months lay between the spring and the fall that it seemed impossible that the end would ever come, just as death seems so incomprehensible to a child.

But that child grows older, and as any growing adult becomes apprehensive of his impending death, the end of this season of new life, the contraction of this expanding spirit, looms ahead. The life grows long, the expanding possibilities give way to selected courses, and the mind wonders if the choices have been the correct ones, if the life could have been made more meaningful somehow. Then we sigh, and see that nobody reaches final success if his aspirations are noble, that we are all failures in the end, we can never reach perfection, never see everything or be everyone or experience perfect ecstasy. The important thing is to make the effort, to make the best effort we can; maybe we are all failures, but as long as we fail beautifully then it has not all been in vain.

I walk out again onto the lake, the springtime playground of kites and rolling waves. The beach is now closed though the warmth still lingers. The grass is still green, but nobody stretches out on its soft bed. School is back in session, the children gone.

I open my notebook to write a silent message to the park, but my pen has run dry. So I speak instead. Thank you, grass, for your hospitality, I say, for inviting me to run my hands through your mane, for letting me be close to you and feel a part of you despite all we�ve done. Thank you for being cool and soft, and helping me lose my problems as I indulged in your childhood world.

Thank you sand, for letting me sift you through my fingers and feel the soft brush of time drifting by, for letting me sink my feet into you and think of nothing else. Thank you water, for lapping at my feet, for opening yourself to me, for showing me the vast emptiness of the world. Thank you sun, for giving me life, for cooking me gently and making my skin tingle.

The sun is disappearing behind North Side apartments now, the cool grass is less inviting. I will come again, perhaps, but if the winter comes swooping in tomorrow and shuts me inside again, I will try not to be sad.

I say good day to you, summer. I say, you are still here and you are beautiful, sun, but you will return. I can survive. I know what to do. I will turn off my lights and turn up the heat and yes, I will suffer, but I will make it through. Yes, come, O cold, you do not make life dark any more than the sun makes the summer bright, you can have coldness even in the brightest suns and you can have tender warmth even in the coldest snaps. All you have to do is keep searching for the beauty in it, learn to love the world as you love yourself, and learn to love yourself. Learn to be beautiful and see that the world is beautiful too. Because I know the world ahead, and it has no beaches or sunning on the porch, but it has autumn leaves and brisk walks and numb noses and laughing when you can. It�s got hot chocolate and colored lights and warm family dinners.

We�ll have to bundle up and enjoy the quiet and tomorrow will be another day, yep, life will go on, but today it�s still summer. I can be ready to fact the future even as I live in the present, the future will work itself out I have faith, and today I will make it work out because there is only today, there is only a long list of todays because I can handle the todays, it�s just the yesterdays and the tomorrows I have trouble with. And so I say goodbye to you summer for today, and hope to see you in bright tomorrows.

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