It's COLD out!

I can't even remember a few short weeks ago when it was so hot that simply leaving the house would cause my brain to melt.

Susanne tagged me! I haven't done a tag in AGES, but look!

1. Nimm das nächste Buch in deiner Nähe mit mindestens 123 Seiten. Take the book that’s next to you that has at least 123 pages.
2. Schlage Seite 123 auf. Open page 123.
3. Suche den fünften Satz auf der Seite. Look for the fifth sentence on that page.
4. Poste die nächsten drei Sätze. Post the next three sentences.
5. Wirf das Stöckchen an fünf Blogger weiter. Tag five more bloggers.

All right. Let's see what's on the top of my to-read pile... "Five Mile House" by Karen Novak.

She uncovered her eyes and straightened her posture, trying to check her wavering, translucent reflection in the plastic. She couldn't focus. The heat took on a sudden density like a vital energy coalescing about her, hemming her in.

Hm. That's a lot of dense, thick adjectives. I may have lost interest. I signed the book out of the library because I tend to switch my reading diet to All Ghost Stories at this time of year, it being ghost story season and all. Just as a sad story is best for winter, a story that's all about unsettled spirits is best for fall.

I see ghosts - of a sort - all the time. There will be a kid running down the street and I'll think, with a start, that it's Justin from grade 10 math or Tracy from grade nine phys ed and then the kid will get closer and I'll realize that it's the child of Justin or Tracy (or whoever) and that Justin or Tracy have now lost their known face, are turning into something different and unrecognizable. There are people I know, of course, who have kept their faces their whole lives, but it's hard to tell who you get to be, if your child running down the street now has the family face and you have a borrowed, softening mask.

I still have my own face - I think, although I ran into a highschool acquaintance the other day and she absolutely did not recognize me - but not one of my children will ever be mistaken for me, being either too blond or too male and not one of them looking terribly like me in the first place. But what used to haunt me was the idea that someday they would be unknown to me, that their minds might be mysterious places, back when they were small and so easily known. And of course, this day has happened - my oldest child is now someone who is both known to me and who is utterly unknown, her own thoughts happening and kept away. And meanwhile, her sunny countenance smiles out from my picture of her on my shelf, a relic from a known time, a little ghost that whispers at me.

It is September. It is growing cold outside, it is growing cold within.