Fall...and get back up again.

The season is upon us. Gone are the long summer evenings and the warm still mornings. Here is the wind. The chill. The leaves freckling the greens. The crows tearing up sod. Here is my favorite season.

Autumn is, for me, as much a time of renewal as it is for the stroll toward dormancy. The wounds wrought by summer heat and humanity have healed in more temperate times. The greens are green. Full. Healthy. Content. The sweaty days of August are a memory, as are the turf diseases they promote (imagine wearing a wool sweater over your T-shirt in 90 degree heat, and never taking it off until September - your damp areas never drying…and you might begin to understand how a golf green feels). But now…now we breathe easy, unimpeded by the unrelenting, suffocating oppressiveness of summer. Now we ready ourselves for a hibernation of sorts. Soon the snow will come, white replacing green as the Link’s primary color.

The golfers are fewer now - not that their numbers were ever that great. They materialize like the deer in your backyard; appearing then disappearing as you drink your coffee.

I sit, then I lay down, on the 2nd tee. The bruised clouds have allowed the setting sun a last chance to say goodbye. The Royal and Ancient Chappaquiddick Links: My here. My now.