Autumn

August 31st, 2025

“Grandpa, when do I start school?”

Asher woke me up at 2:00 AM to ask me that question. He was lying in bed next to me. He had been restless for a few minutes prior to that. I roused myself long enough to answer,

“In three days.”

Asher begins kindergarten at the Waldorf school on Wednesday morning. For him it will be a seismic change in life. New schedule, new friends, a new teacher, a new environment. My wife can still remember her first day of school. She has a faded black and white photo from Germany with her smiling and holding her Schul Tute, a large cone with little gifts inside. I can’t remember my first day of kindergarten, but I can recall my first day at West Point, back in 1976. In some ways that sort of radical change could be similar to what Asher may experience. I moved a thousand miles from home and cut the connection with nearly everything I had done and learned in my first eighteen years of life. I entered a strange new world, and Asher will do much the same thing on Wednesday.

Asher laid his head on my shoulder. He twisted and turned until he made himself comfortable. Then he fell asleep again in the crux of my right arm.

I had an intense and vivid dream. It was from my time in the Army as an aviator. I was in an aircraft hangar and looking out at the sky. A storm was rapidly approaching. Heavy, swirling clouds darkened the horizon. Winds blew and whipped into the hangar. Large objects were thrown about. I dodged them as rain poured outside.

I woke up late this morning. Well, for me getting up at 6:21 AM qualifies as late. It was light already, and I didn’t get up in time to see the morning star. The sun shown through the trees. A heavy dew covered the grass in the yard, and drops of water dripped from the gutters. The kitchen window was open, and cold air blew into the house. It is still August, but it feels like autumn. A few of the trees already have leaves changing color. The goldenrod is in full bloom with tiny bright yellow flowers.

Things are changing, and they are changing quickly.

My wife went to a handicraft store yesterday. She came home a bag full of wool yarn.

She told me sheepishly, “I spent $200.”

I replied, “We have the money. Spend it if it keeps you happy and sane.”

As Asher approaches the beginning of his school year, Karin is delving more deeply into her fiber arts. She is weaving more, knitting more, spinning more. On Friday, she will go to the annual Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. She assures me that she won’t spend as much. That doesn’t matter. It matters that she feeds her creativity. She will attend a class at the festival. She can buy whatever she needs while she is there. Once Asher is in kindergarten, Karin will have a small hole in her life where Asher used to be. She has to fill it. Karin loves to care for Asher. She should fill the hole with something else that she loves to do.

New things. Exciting things. Scary things. Fun things.

A change of seasons.