Fall: Time To Play

So maybe it is not officially fall, yet; however, the prairie plants in my yard have that look. I guess they do not worry as much about calendars and meteorological pronouncements.

In any case, there should be a word for this period between the heat of summer and the chill of autumn. As far as indeterminate spaces go, it is one of my favorites. Temperatures vacillate. Night creeps in more quickly. The light falls differently than during those dry tinder days of July and August.

There should be a word. Maybe something along the lines of gloaming--quite possibly my favorite time of day, when the dipping Western sun takes on the look of rose-tinged klieg lights against the houses and trees across the park. There should be a word. For now, I'll not worry about the naming, but just enjoy the changes according to their own logic.

To this end, it seems like the perfect time to do a little creating.

A note to my students and anybody else who is interested:

People might wonder why I took the time to make this. Here are five reasons:

• I wanted to spend some time creating, not consuming.
• I wanted to spend some time experimenting with materials and tools.
• I wanted to capture a moment and be an active observer.
• I wanted to feel connected to my world.
• In a moment of boredom, I wanted to resist being a mindless scroller.

Wait. I just thought of a sixth:

• I wanted to have a little fun.

It took me somewhere between 90 minutes-2 hours to put this all together and write this post. What could I have done with that time instead? Certainly, I could have watched t.v. I could have read, taken a nap, thumbed my way through Twitter, taken a walk. But it's not about what I could have done. Giving my attention to this project meant giving attention my thinking, to my breathing, to my fingers, to my eyes, to my legs. As a colleague put it, it meant striving to be a "proactive authentic being." That's what these tools at my disposal, like my exacto knife, my phone, my laptop, can help me to become.