Countdown

When I was five, I would build towers of blocks in my parents' family room - in the middle of the rug, the most inconvenient place imaginable - and dance around them, chanting imaginary songs about the number of days until Halloween.

I would make paper-link chains in the colors of fall and remove one every day until Thanksgiving, when I would enviously watch my father and grandfather savor the prized drumsticks and boast that I could eat as much as they could.

When the snow began to fall, I would hang my advent calendar and make a ritual of marking each day's passing by opening the tiny doors.

Something about autumn still awakes in me an awareness of time, ticking away, and makes me determined to enjoy every moment. Like a child, I'm still giddy with anticipation and I marvel at the way nature charts the passage of time for us; the nights growing longer and colder and the mornings' new frost.