V is for variety

The variation of seasons is one of New England's most endearing qualities. That variation is about to come awake again as the Vs of geese are passing overhead, honking out their harbinger of Fall. The mornings are cool and the days are full of warming sunlight and merry little breezes. I am looking forward to the cool and shorter days.
Summer is lingering, the humming bird still inspects all of the nasturtiums each morning, and the herbs have found new spurts of growth. The tomatoes are tired and are burying themselves in new foliage, much like an old man's nose and ears do. The peppers and sage and basil and tarragon are looking forward to coming inside for the Winter. The herbs will have a wonderful Winter on the windowsill that the airconditioner now dominates, once the machine is moved to the floor of the sunniest window and the only window that is wide enough to accomodate it. It will serve as a table for the seedling trays. The peppers will be hung upside down, pots and all, in the spare room that is the darkest and driest room. Next Spring they will be put outside to revive and produce even earlier.
A large flock of geese just dropped onto the soccer field across the street for breakfast. All of the honking stops once they have landed. They have a long journey ahead of them, all of the way to Chesapeake Bay, where they will be invited to dinner.
The cycle of the seasons turns again as the wheel of life turns in its endless procession of birth, youth, maturity, and age. The peppers are lucky. They will see a new season of growth and fruiting. Mankind is lucky, because they do not have to go through the uncertainty and insecurity of youth more than once. There is a word that describes this but I cannot remember it. Good, that means that it did not make much of an impression on me.
I have had my youth and fruiting and maturity and now I look forward to the end of the cycle, sitting by a sunny window and watching the chickadees and Juncos squabbling over the abundance of seed spread on the snow. Where the humming bird will go I don't know. How can such a tiny dynamo get too far? It will, even the Monarch butterflies are able to take on an overwhelming journey. Adios butterflies!
I just remembered the word, inferiority complex. Those little grey cells are not dead, they are just a little slower than they used to be. So am I.