Dusk from a corn maze.

Lights, Mazes and Rhythm.

Adminisk8or

09/25/2023

It's that time of year when things are starting to get just a bit more chilly- jackets are dawned, frost appears on my windshield in the morning, and ever on and on the busy life goes.

The week kind of just came and went, mostly- working, a fun drive at night, grocery trips, the usual. Perhaps the most unexpected part came when, what should hail in the autumn equinox but... hail. Yeah, we had a hailstorm that came in a few quick but strong waves. And that storm was finally the thing to put a nail in the coffin. I had an outdoor rated smart dimmer switch that I had attached to some scenic string lights on my patio... but I was a dunce and had too short of an extension cord, thus the receptacle was pointed upwards, catching rain quite elegantly, however waterproof it may have been. And lo and behold, I watched my patio lights flickering like they were possessed, and that was enough to put me running, unplugging, attemping (and failing) to fix, and then improvising with a rather unusual but handy alternative. As of right now, now that the pug has had a few days to dry out, I'm retesting it... and as of this moment the lights aren't flickering, so... maybe win?

Speaking of lights, Saturday proved to be a very busy day, indeed- and it started with light installations. I went to my uncle's and aunt's house to replace three of their external house lights, and, as should probably be expected on almost any house, that experience involved certain questions raised in my mind about the contractors, ranging somewhere between "Hmmm... okay that was done right" to "Wow. You didn't even TRY". But overall, it was an easy job. Right after it, though, I ran on over to my mom's place, where I helped lay down some paving stones... and by that, what I acually mean is that I pulled up a couple dozen of them, tore up about probably 20x4 feet of sod, leveled the ground, hauled off dirt, and replaced the paving stones, which then numbered 28. The good news is I had my brother's help in doing so, for which I'm grateful, as it would've been the death of me trying to get that done in a day by myself- but also, those stones were heavy, and the sod was heavy, and the dirt was heavy! A the end of the day, I was sore, and by next morning, I was all the more sore- but I was quite satisfied at the work we got done- truly, it looked great!

And to end the day of hard labor, I went out with the boyz and we hit up a corn maze. We had planned on doing the haunted one, but I guess they hadn't opened that just yet, so we got the normal experience. And to be honest, I thought so when I was quite young, and I still think so now- big, simple corn mazes are fun! There's something enjoyable about wandering about with friends through a labyrinth of passages with no high stakes excepting getting out before closing time.

I suppose it plays into a natural part of us, and I think it does so in a surprisingly subtle way- because it hits something of a perfect balance. It isn't so difficult and stressful that we start worrying and getting anxious about whether everything will be okay, but it also adds just enough twists, turns and dead ends that, in a whimsical way, you wonder if you remember having been in a certain spot, before- or if you're just imagining things! It's often said that people hate change. On the other hand, it's also often said that people hate when life gets stale and stagnant. Of course, one of the other of these things are exact opposites of the other- and if life was one or the other, it would quite literally be a well-defined hell we would live in. Thankfully (and it's here I am borrowing from something C. S. Lewis talked about, which I quite agree with), to our creator's ever good credit, we have the blessing of rhythm.

And it really goes without saying that this exact time of year is a very fine example of it. The autumn leaves turn colors, and the lively greenery that spring and summer worked so hard to give us slowly fade away into a long winter's nap- but only for a season. Once again, in the spring, the trees and the shrubs will awaken, again- and just in good time, as I have no doubt that I, for one, will be quite ready for another warm summer to grace me!

But it's a comforting thought- when darkness seems to press on and on and on, and we start wondering if it could ever really end- the answer is all around us. The cold of winter never really lasts forever, nor does the scalding, cruel sun of summer beat down on us forever. All of these evils that try to beseech us are passing things. I'll be the first to attest that sometimes they take a VERY long time to pass- but in the end, they pass. Don't forget that.

And until next week, see ya!