The front porch is the perfect place to watch life reinvent itself, as is always the case with each passing season.  Children run for their school buses, while parents wave (sometimes weep) from a distance.

Scout (my 8 year old German Shepherd gem) and I observe, this nurturing part of our lives long over.  Without a (human) female presence in our home, we’ve become silent in our emotions.  We’ve become complacent in this knowledge, both she and I… though something occasionally stirs.

That tear shed quietly by a young father, loading his little girl onto the bus for her first day of kindergarden.  These moments capture an old soul, and remind it of its humanity.

How long can one fall into this descent?

Some will speak of seasonal affective disorders and state that such questions should be asked in the spring, when hope is trying to push through the melting snow.  Such impossible questions should not be posed in the fall (which appears to be coming early this year), when life is dying.

But here we are, Scout and I, wondering why my chair has stopped rocking.

Wondering why I am staring so intently.

Wondering what this wetness is upon my face… when I do not even know this young girl.

I find myself standing, my head titled just so to the right, a mirror image of the dog at my heel.  Confusion tries to dissipate in the face of longing… perhaps to feel a child’s breath in my lungs, that I may run and laugh… fall into a pile of leaves… someday love again.

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