Ahh…

Summer is winding down here in the northern hemisphere.

Days are shorter.

Nights are longer and cooler.

Late summer/early fall flowers are blooming.

It is one of my least favorite times of year (except for the blooming flowers…)

Spring and summer lift my soul.

Autumn much less so.

I don’t know how much of this is related to the dread and sadness I used to feel as a child and teenager about having to go back to school each fall.

And how much of it may simply be a visceral response to the shortening daylight hours.

I have always been acutely sensitive to — and sad about — endings.

As I may have mentioned in a previous blog post, my father and mother each told me (separately) that when I was an infant, I would always cry when they sang “Good Night, Irene” to me as a lullaby.

If that is true, I’m not sure why they kept singing it to me (maybe to see if — yet again — it would move me to tears?)

But apparently they did.

And I always cried.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Today I am throwing back to a blog post from October 2014 which features the song “Something Good” from the movie version of The Sound Of Music.

It is another song which moves me to tears.

I recorded it with pianist Doug Hammer when we were working on a show called “Songs About Parents and Children.”

I used to think that it was written by Rodgers & Hammerstein, but it turns out — as you may already know — that it was written by Richard Rodgers after Oscar had died (from stomach cancer on August 23, 1950 at his beloved Bucks County farm in Pennsylvania).

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Ahh, beginnings…

Ahh, endings…

Are YOU a fan of autumn?

If so, please leave me a compelling comment about how I can learn to appreciate and savor it more in the weeks ahead….

Thank you to the generous and talented photographers at Pixabay for these beautiful images.

And thank YOU for reading this blog post.