The rhythm I need

I need a certain rhythm to my life.

I like it that life has a beat to it. The beat of music helps me when I run. There is a cadence to the world around me that I find comforting, and it's brought on lately by this currently dreary transition from autumn to winter.

It couldn't be more dreary out there on this particular day. A front with low gray clouds and rain is moving into the region. The trees are long, long past their peak of colors; what leaves are left shudder on the branches with each puff of wind. My lawn needs raking, my gutters need cleaning and the patio furniture needs to be put away. All in all, not the prettiest scene outside my window.

Yet, as I drove on my errands this morning I was comforted by the otherwise glum surroundings. I was glad we are where we are in the seasonal transition. It means there will be snow and cold. There will be Thanksgiving and Christmas. There will be spring and Easter. There will be summer and the promise of hot days and the opportunity to surf again. And we'll loop around again to fall and the first taste of Oktoberfest beer from Sam Adams and the colors and the days just like today.

I have a stepdaughter doing an internship in Los Angeles, where there is no cadence to the seasons or even the weather, really. It's pretty much the same every day, she says. Born and bred in New Hampshire, she misses the color change of fall, even misses the fact that her campus in New York State has already had a little snow. I'm like her. I need the change to look forward to.

I find the rhythm by what I load and unload into the trunk of the car, depending on the season. The golf clubs and golf gear stay in the longest as I start to play as early as I can in the spring then through the summer and as late into the fall as possible. Then the golf stuff comes out, a portable snow shovel, fleece blanket and portable ski rack go in.

I find rhythm by figuring out who is where and who is with whom for the holidays. Between current spouses, ex-spouses, children, step-children, mom, mother-in-law, brothers and sisters and various in-laws and out-laws, there are a lot of travel plans to review.

I find rhythm in the rites that define us as families: The birthdays of the people I love, the college graduation in May of my son David and stepdaughter Eileen, Mother's Day and Father's Day, and the family celebrations we pull together if for no other reason than we're all in the same place at the same time.

The snow will fall soon and will need plowing and shoveling. It will get bitterly cold and I'll listen to the furnace burn through the propane. The spring rains will come and potentially flood the basement if the sump pumps can't keep up.

But so will the school vacation ski week in February and the college hockey tournaments in March and the first swing of the golf club in April and the first cut of the grass.

I look forward to it all.