It’s been cold this past week.  The temperature has dropped, the wasps are gone, the apples are in, and my dog suddenly has a white breath in the cold morning air.

How did this happen?  I remember as if it were only the week before; jumping in the pond at a friend’s place to wash off the dust of a beautifully warm late summer day.

And now, at seven in the morning, out in West Marin, the patches of grass that lie in the shade are frozen over.

This will happen to my life too.  Suddenly, before I know it, I will be in my late fall, right before winter, just before darkness covers the season of transformation – a season in which some things will die and new life will be re-born out of their death, out of my death.

So this is it, then, this is the time to reflect on this life and this year. 

It’s fall.  And as I light my first candle of this season, take a hot bath, and all of a sudden find my bed cozier than ever, I look at this year - at my successes and failures, my travels, my new and old friends, and I realize that there is only one question to ask: 

Did I love enough?

Knowing that the answer will likely never be “yes”, I am glad that there are six weeks left before the end of 2009.

I know I can love more, I know many of us can.  May our breath in the cold air these mornings remind us that we are all on borrowed time, and that the one question at the end of the day will be the same. . . for all of us.