The air has changed.  I already feel nostalgia for summer.  Every year as summertime draws to a close, one particular summer morning, I feel the change.  The air heralds the change:  the chill in the early-morning fog, the clarity of sound, the vibrancy of greens and yellows in the sideways sunlight.

The swallows are out in force catching insects on the water’s surface.  Six perch on the bench and the rowboat as I approach so close I can see the narrowness of their necks and the shininess of the feathers on their heads and wings.  One has a silver thread arching from its beak – they have been chowing on spiders.

The spiders are more active now.  The path up to the mailbox is blockaded by a dozen webs.  I pull a bracken fern and hold it in front of my face as a web-clearing device so I am not strung with webs (and their weavers) by the time I reach the top.

I demonstrate this practical technique to my friend Debbie; her response surprises me.

“I like the way spiderwebs feel on my face.  It makes me feel caressed.”

Caressed.  The word is an invitation to change.  And allow a small thing in nature that my tidy, insular self usually resists – to bless me.

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