Short & getting sweeter: the waning days of summer

The temperature, which started in the 60s, will reach the 90s today. But this isn't a 90-degree day of spring. Nor, despite the calendar, a summer 90s.

Instead, it's a autumn kind of 90s. One with green, unripe pecans on the sidewalks; one where shadows fall earlier, and short sleeves don't feel like a sweater.

I started my run at 8:45 -- an unheard of time to begin even as recently as a week ago. But today it was just right. The sun didn't feel harsh. I didn't wish I'd remembered to bring a cloth to wipe my face. Strangers didn't look askance at my sweaty silliness for running in the heat of day.

In a few weeks, my running partner and I will base our 7 p.m. route on where we want to go and how we feel...not on which side of the street the sun isn't shining.

Back when the temperature was 85 at 7 a.m., time seemed stuck in summer's swelter. No shaking of the hourglass could make the sand rush more quickly to the other side, to the bittersweet bliss of cooler days and earlier evenings.

Today, though, was a reminder: Of what will be, and of what can be. Of potential and of promise that we look to the seasons to see, but which they only begin to reflect.