Changing of the Seasons

My husband came in the house this week and summoned me.
"Come outside with me," he said.  "I want you to feel something".
I walked outside and stood in the front yard with him and he said, "now feel the air".
Standing still and at attention, I did notice a difference.  It wasn't exactly a brisk Autumn breeze, but one could sense the change.  It was definitely cooler, still warm, but cooler.  And there was just a certain feeling.
"Now listen," he said.
I did.  And I could hear the tree frogs and the crickets, chirping to beat the band. 
"Now look at the trees," he said.
I did.  And I noticed the hint of color beginning to come.  Still green, but not as bright as they had been a few weeks ago.
"Now look at the clouds," he said.
I obeyed.  And I begin to feeling somewhere inside me the miracle that was taking place.  The seasons were changing.  Humans had done nothing to bring about this wonderful change, it was just happening right on time and in the order it should.  And there was a feeling of refreshment in the change.  I felt it inside.  The strangle hold the summer's heat had on us was slowly being released.  My body was beginning to respond to the change.  My senses were heightened and the relief was noteworthy.  Things sounded, smelled, and felt different.  Nothing drastic.  Nothing really that different,  but yet a very real difference.  More the kind of difference that happens inside a person rather than outside. 
July and August in the South, and especially in Memphis, with all it's concrete and asphalt, is deadly hot. Not just heat but crippling humidity to go with it.  Every year I live here I dread it.   Even going to the grocery store is a burden.  If you leave your car in the parking lot for more than an hour while you shop, when you return the steering wheel will be so hot you have trouble touching it.  Your milk will turn to clabber on the short ride home unless you carry a cooler in your trunk.  Ice cream and frozen foods will be totally thawed and running out the side of the bag in fifteen minutes unless deposited in said cooler.  And the effect on your body is hard to describe.  It's like trying to run a marathon with a ship's anchor tied around your neck.  Everything takes place in slow motion.  If you try to hurry you will literally pass out from the heat.  People here in the city die from it every year.
That's why the changing of the seasons is such an event here.  We anticipate it.  We long for it.  We embrace it with both arms.  It is a wonder!  It is a miracle!  It's too long in coming!  We savor the change.  Our hearts as well as our bodies respond accordingly.
I stood outside with my husband and felt what he had come inside to bring me outside to feel. The seasons were changing!  We would have more heat, that was for certain.  But the promise was there that in a few weeks things would be different.  That there would be relief from that which had repressed us for several weeks.  And knowing that is enough.  Enough to get us through the last hot days of summer.